ey were
afraid of him?

[Illustration: 'Who are you?' he said. 'Answer, I adjure you by the
sacred Tau!']

Quentin was shivering with the surprise and newness of it all. He had
read about magic, but he had not wholly believed in it, and yet, now, if
this was not magic, what was it? You go to sleep on an old stone in a
ruin. You wake on the same stone, quite new, on a ship. Magic, magic, if
ever there was magic in this wonderful, mysterious world!

The silence became awkward. Some one had to say something.

'Good-morning,' said Quentin, feeling that he ought perhaps to be the
one.

Instantly every one in sight fell on his face on the deck.

Only one, a tall man with a black beard and a blue mantle, stood up and
looked Quentin in the eyes.

'Who are you?' he said. 'Answer, I adjure you by the Sacred Tau!' Now
this was very odd, and Quentin could never understand it, but when this
man spoke Quentin understood _him_ perfectly, and yet at the same time
he knew that the man was speaking a foreign language. So that his
thought was not, 'Hullo, you speak English!' but 'Hullo, I can
understand your language.'

'I am Quentin de Ward,' he said.

'A name from other stars! How came you here?' asked the blue-mantled
man.

'_I_ don't know,' said Quentin.

'He does not know. He did not sail with us. It is by magic that he is
here,' said Blue Mantle. 'Rise, all, and greet the Chosen of the
Gods.'

They rose from the deck, and Quentin saw that they were all bearded
men, with bright, earnest eyes, dressed in strange dress of something
like jersey and tunic and heavy golden ornaments.

'Hail! Chosen of the Gods,' cried Blue Mantle, who seemed to be the
leader.

'Hail, Chosen of the Gods!' echoed the rest.

'Thank you very much, I'm sure,' said Quentin.

'And what is this stone?' asked Blue Mantle, pointing to the stone on
which Quentin sat.

And Quentin, anxious to show off his knowledge, said:

'I'm not quite sure, but I _think_ it's the altar stone of Stonehenge.'

'It is proved,' said Blue Mantle. 'Thou art the Chosen of the Gods. Is
there anything my Lord needs?' he added humbly.

'I ... I'm rather hungry,' said Quentin; 'it's a long time since dinner,
you know.'

They brought him bread and bananas, and oranges.

'Take,' said Blue Mantle, 'of the fruits of the earth, and specially of
this, which gives drink and meat and ointment to man,' suddenly
offering a large cocoa-nut.

Quentin took, with appropria