the other priests rule. Nor Phorenice. Nor anybody. We are done with
rulers."

The press had brought us closer and closer to the man who stood on the
war engine. We saw him to be old, with white hair that tumbled on his
shoulders, and a long white beard, untrimmed and uncurled. Save for a
wisp of rag about the loins, his body was unclothed, and glistened in
the wet.

But in his hand he held that which marked his caste. With it he pointed
his sentences, and at times he whirled it about bathing his wet,
naked body in a halo of light. It was a wand whose tip burned with an
unconsuming fire, which glowed and twinkled and blazed like some star
sent down by the Gods from their own place in the high heaven. It was
the Symbol of our Lord the Sun, a credential no one could forge, and one
on which no civilised man would cast a doubt.

Indeed, the ragged frantic crew did not question for one moment that
he was a member of the Clan of Priests, the Clan which from time out
of numbering had given rulers for the land, and even in their loudest
clamours they freely acknowledged his powers. "You may kill us with your
magic, if you choose," they screamed at him. But stubbornly they refused
to come back to their old allegiance. "We have suffered too many
things these later years," they cried. "We are done with rulers now for
always."

But for myself I saw the old man with a different emotion. Here was
Zaemon that was father to Nais, Zaemon that had seen me yesterday seated
on the divan at Phorenice's elbow, and who to-day could denounce me as
Deucalion if so he chose. These rebels had expended a navy in their
wish to kill me four days earlier, and if they knew of my nearness, even
though Nais were my advocate, her cold reasoning would have had little
chance of an audience now. The High Gods who keep the tether of our
lives hide Their secrets well, but I did not think it impious to be sure
that mine was very near the cutting then.

The beautiful woman saw this too. She even went so far as to twine her
fingers in mine and press them as a farewell, and I pressed hers in
return, for I was sorry enough not to see her more. Still I could not
help letting my thoughts travel with a grim gloating over the fine mound
of dead I should build before these ragged, unskilled rebels pulled me
down. And it was inevitable this should be so. For of all the emotions
that can ferment in the human heart, the joy of strife is keenest, and
none but an old