vails and sorrows of their
daily lives, so much warmer grew their responses.

"... WHO STILLED THE BURNING OF THE MOUNTAINS, AND MADE COOL PLACES ON
THE EARTH FOR US TO LIVE!--PRAISE TO THE MOST HIGH GODS.

"WHO GAVE US MASTERY OVER THE LESSER BEASTS AND SKILL OF TEN TIMES TO
PREVAIL!--PRAISE TO THE MOST HIGH GODS...."

"WHO GAVE US MASTERY OVER THE LESSER BEASTS AND SKILL OF TEN TIMES TO
PREVAIL!--PRAISE TO THE MOST HIGH GODS...."

It thrilled one to hear their earnestness; it sorrowed one to know that
they would yet be obdurate and not return to their old allegiance.
For this is the way with these common people; they will work up an
enthusiasm one minute, and an hour later it will have fled away and left
them cold and empty.

But Zaemon made no further calls upon their loyalty. He finished the
prescribed form of sentences, and stepped down off the platform of the
war engine with the Symbol of our Lord the Sun thrust out resolutely
before him. To all ordinary seeming the crowd had been packed so that no
further compression was possible, but before the advance of the Symbol
the people crushed back, leaving a wide lane for his passage.

And here came the turning point of my life. At first, like, I take
it, every one else in that crowd, I imagined that the old man, having
finished his mission, was making a way to return to the place from which
he had come. But he held steadily to one direction, and as that was
towards myself, it naturally came to my mind that, having dealt with
greater things, he would now settle with the less; or, in plainer words,
that having put his policy before the swarming people, he would now
smite down the man he had seen but yesterday seated as Phorenice's
minister. Well, I should lose that final fight I had promised myself,
and that mound of slain for my funeral bed. It was clear that Zaemon was
the mouthpiece of the Priests' Clan, duly appointed; and I also was a
priest. If the word had been given on the Sacred Mountain to those who
sat before the Ark of the Mysteries that Atlantis would prosper more
with Deucalion sent to the Gods, I was ready to bow to the sentence with
submissiveness. That I had regret for this mode of cutting off, I will
not deny. No man who has practised the game of arms could abandon the
promise of such a gorgeous final battle without a qualm of longing.

But I had been trained enough to show none of these emotions on my face,
and when the old man came up to me, I