, when men lived for hundreds of years this was not so
necessary, especially as their great fear was lest it should fall into
the hands of the outside nations, whom they called Barbarians. For, be
it remembered, these Sons of Wisdom were always a very small people
who ruled by the weight of their intelligence and the strength of their
accumulated lore. Indeed, they could scarcely be called a people; rather
were they a few families, all of them more or less connected with the
original ruling Dynasty which considered itself half divine. These
families were waited upon by a multitude of servants or slaves drawn
from the subject nations, for the most part skilled in one art or
another, or perhaps, remarkable for their personal beauty. Still they
remained outside the pale.

The Sons of Wisdom did not intermarry with them or teach them their
learning, or even allow them to drink of their Life-water. They ruled
them as men rule dogs, treating them with kindness, but no more, and as
many dogs run their course and die in the lifetime of one master, so did
many of these slaves in that of one of the Sons of Wisdom. Therefore,
the slaves came to regard their lords not as men, but gods. They lived
but three score years and ten like the rest of us, and went their way,
they, whose great-great-grandfathers had served the same master and
whose great-great-great-grandchildren would still serve him. What should
we think of a lord who we knew was already adult in the time of William
the Conqueror, and who remained still vigorous and all-powerful in that
of George V? One, moreover, who commanded almost infinite knowledge to
which we were denied the key? We might tremble before him and look upon
him as half-divine, but should we not long to kill him and possess his
knowledge and thereby prolong our own existence to his wondrous measure?

Such, said Yva, was the case with their slaves and the peoples from
whence these sprang. They grew mad with jealous hate, till at length
came the end we knew.

Thus we talked on for hours till the time came for us to eat. As before
Yva partook of fruit and we of such meats as we had at hand. These,
we noticed, disgusted her, because, as she explained, the Children of
Wisdom, unless driven thereto by necessity, touched no flesh, but lived
on the fruits of the earth and wine alone. Only the slaves and the
Barbarians ate flesh. In these views Bickley for once agreed with
her, that is, except as regards the wi