mother were working within him, and the impulse to
sudden action gathered force beneath his dreams. So he was glad when
the next visitor came bearing the marks of evident sincerity and a
great purpose.

His beard was untrimmed, his garb was rude, his feet were bare, like
an ancient prophet. His voice was fiercely quiet, and his eyes burned
while he talked, as if he saw to the root of all things. He called
himself John the Nothingarian.

The lord of the castle related some of the plans which his counsellors
had made for his greater usefulness.

"They are puerile," said the Nothingarian, "futile, because they do
not go to the root."

Then the young lord spoke of the legends of his forefathers and the
history of Stronghold.

"They are dusty tales," said the Nothingarian, "false, because they do
not go to the root."

"How shall we get to the root?" asked the young lord, trembling with a
new eagerness.

"There is only one way," answered the prophet. "Come with me."

As they went through the outer passageway the old man pressed hard
with his hands against one of the stones in the wall, and a little
door slid open.

"The secret stair," said he, "by which your fathers brought in their
stolen women. Your Stronghold is honeycombed with lies."

The young lord's face was red as fire. "I never knew of it," he
murmured.

In the vaulted crypt beneath the castle the old man found a lantern
and a pickaxe. He went to an alcove walled with plaster and picked at
it with the axe. The plaster fell away. On the floor of the alcove lay
two crumpled bodies of men long dead; the clothes were rotting upon
the bones and a dagger stuck fast in each back.

"They were stabbed as they sat at meat," said the old man, "for the
gain of their gold. Your Stronghold is cemented with blood."

The young lord's face grew dark as night. "I never knew of it," he
muttered.

"Come," said the other, "I see we must go a little deeper before you
know where you stand."

So he led the way through the long vaults, where the cobwebs trailed
like rags and the dripping pendules of lime hung from the arches like
dirty icicles, until he came to the foundation of the great tower.
There he set down the lantern and began to dig, fiercely and silently,
close to the corner-stone, throwing out the rubble with his bare
hands. At last the pick broke through into a hollow niche. At the
bottom of it was the skeleton of a child about five years old, and the
cords