hole wards had
been swept away to make space for new palaces, and new pyramids of the
wealthy, and I could not but have an admiration for the skill and the
brain which made possible such splendid monuments.

And, indeed, gazing at them there under the silver of the moonlight,
I could almost understand the emotions of the Europeans and other
barbarous savages which cause them to worship all such great buildings
as Gods, since they deem them too wonderful and majestic to be set up by
human hands unaided.

Still, if it was easy to admire, it was simple also to see plain
advertisement of the cost at which these great works had been reared.
From each grant of ground, where one of these stately piles earned
silver under the moon, a hundred families had been evicted and left to
harbour as they pleased in the open; and, as a consequence, now every
niche had its quota of sleepers, and every shadow its squad of fierce
wild creatures, ready to rush out and rob or slay all wayfarers of less
force than their own.

Myself, I am no pamperer of the common people. I say that, if a man be
left to hunger and shiver, he will work to gain him food and raiment;
and if not, why then he can die, and the State is well rid of a
worthless fellow. But here beside us, as we marched through many wards,
were marks of blind oppression; starved dead bodies, with the bones
starting through the lean skin, sprawled in the gutter; and indeed
it was plain that, save for the favoured few, the people of the great
capital were under a most heavy oppression.

But at this, though I might regret it abominably, I could make no strong
complaint. By the ancient law of the land all the people, great and
small, were the servants of the king, to be put without question to what
purposes he chose; and Phorenice stood in the place of the king. So I
tried to think no treason, but with a sigh passed on, keeping my eyes
above the miseries and the squalors of the roadway, and sending out my
thoughts to the stars which hung in the purple night above, and to
the High Gods which dwelt amongst them, seeking, if it might be, for
guidance for my future policies. And so in time the windings of the
streets brought us to the walls, and, coursing beside these and giving
fitting answer to the sentries who beat their drums as we passed, we
came in time to that great gate which was a charge to the captain of the
garrison.

Here it was plain there was some special commotion. A noise