d the
Abbey of the Holy Tears. Day after day they wrenched out the very
ribs of the hill until the Abbey was builded, and it was more
beautiful than anything in stone. Then the priests blessed
Sacremona, and it had rest, and no more stone was ever taken from it
to build the houses of men. And the hill stood looking southwards
lonely in the sunlight, defaced by that mighty scar. So vast was
the door of steel. And the name of the door was The Porte Resonant,
the Way of Egress for War.

Then Leothric smote upon the Porte Resonant with Sacnoth, and the
echo of Sacnoth went ringing through the halls, and all the dragons
in the fortress barked. And when the baying of the remotest dragon
had faintly joined in the tumult, a window opened far up among the
clouds below the twilit gables, and a woman screamed, and far away
in Hell her father heard her and knew that her doom was come.

And Leothric went on smiting terribly with Sacnoth, and the grey
steel of the Porte Resonant, the Way of Egress for War, that was
tempered to resist the swords of the world, came away in ringing
slices.

Then Leothric, holding Sacnoth in his hand, went in through the hole
that he had hewn in the door, and came into the unlit, cavernous
hall.

An elephant fled trumpeting. And Leothric stood still, holding
Sacnoth. When the sound of the feet of the elephant had died away in
the remoter corridors, nothing more stirred, and the cavernous hall
was still.

Presently the darkness of the distant halls became musical with the
sound of bells, all coming nearer and nearer.

Still Leothric waited in the dark, and the bells rang louder and
louder, echoing through the halls, and there appeared a procession
of men on camels riding two by two from the interior of the
fortress, and they were armed with scimitars of Assyrian make and
were all clad with mail, and chain-mail hung from their helmets
about their faces, and flapped as the camels moved. And they all
halted before Leothric in the cavernous hall, and the camel bells
clanged and stopped. And the leader said to Leothric:

'The Lord Gaznak has desired to see you die before him. Be pleased
to come with us, and we can discourse by the way of the manner in
which the Lord Gaznak has desired to see you die.'

And as he said this he unwound a chain of iron that was coiled upon
his saddle, and Leothric answered:

'I would fain go with you, for I am come to slay Gaznak.'

Then all the camel-gua