wife would not have been very repugnant to me if policy had
demanded it. But the matters of the last two days had put things in a
different shape. I had seen two other women who had strangely attracted
me, and one of these had stirred within me a tumult such as I had never
felt before amongst my economies.

To lead Phorenice in marriage would mean a severance from this other
woman eternally, and I ached as I thought of it. But though these
thoughts floated through my system and gave me harsh wrenches of pain, I
did not thrust my puny likings before the command of the council of the
Priests. I bowed before Zaemon, and put his hand to my forehead. "It is
an order," I said. "If our Lord the Sun gives me life, I will obey."

"Then let us begone from this place," said Zaemon, and took me by the
arm and waved a way for us with the Symbol. No further word did I have
with Nais, fearing to embroil her with these rebels who clustered round,
but I caught one hot glance from her eyes, and that had to suffice
for farewell. The dense ranks of the crowd opened, and we walked
away between them scathless. Fiercely though they lusted for my life,
brimming with hate though they made their cries, no man dared to rush
in and raise a hand against me. Neither did they follow. When we reached
the outskirts of the crowd, and the ranks thinned, they had a mind, many
of them, to surge along in our wake; but Zaemon whirled the Symbol back
before their faces with a blaze of lurid light, and they fell to their
knees, grovelling, and pressed on us no more.

The rain still fell, and in the light of the camp fires as we passed
them, the wet gleamed on the old man's wasted body. And far before us
through the darkness loomed the vast bulk of the Sacred Mountain, with
the ring of eternal fires encincturing its crest. I sighed as I thought
of the old peaceful days I had spent in its temple and groves.

But there was to be no more of that studious leisure now. There was work
to be done, work for Atlantis which did not brook delay. And so when we
had progressed far out into the waste, and there was none near to view
(save only the most High Gods), we found the place where the passage
was, whose entrance is known only to the Seven amongst the Priests; and
there we parted, Zaemon to his hermitage in the dangerous lands, and I
by this secret way back into the capital.

9. PHORENICE, GODDESS

Now the passage, though its entrance had been cunningly h