dust library lay, was
also beginning to burn.

It was hopeless outside, and nothing to be done but to save Heru, so
down I went, and, with the slaves, carried her away from the hall
through a vestibule or two, and into an anteroom, where some
yellow-girt individuals were already engaged in the suggestive work of
tying up palace plate in bundles, amongst other things, alas! the great
gold love-bowl from which--oh! so long ago--I had drawn Heru's marriage
billet. These individuals told me in tremulous accents they had got a
boat on a secret waterway behind the palace whence flight to the main
river and so, far away inland, to another smaller but more peaceful
city of their race would be quite practical; and joyfully hearing this
news, I handed over to them the princess while I went to look for Hath.

And the search was not long. Dashing into the banquet-hall, still
littered with the remains of a feast, and looking down its deserted
vistas, there at the farther end, on his throne, clad in the sombre
garments he affected, chin on hand, sedate in royal melancholy,
listening unmoved to the sack of his town outside, sat the prince
himself. Strange, gloomy man, the great dead intelligence of his race
shining in his face as weird and out of place as a lonely sea beacon
fading to nothing before the glow of sunrise, never had he appeared so
mysterious as at that moment. Even in the heat of excitement I stared
at him in amazement, wishing in a hasty thought the confusion of the
past few weeks had given me opportunity to penetrate the recesses of
his mind, and therefrom retell you things better worth listening to
than all the incident of my adventures. But now there was no time to
think, scarce time to act.

"Hath!" I cried, rushing over to him, "wake up, your majesty. The
Thither men are outside, killing and burning!"

"I know it."

"And the palace is on fire. You can smell the reek even here."

"Yes."

"Then what are you going to do?"

"Nothing."

"My word, that is a fine proposition for a prince! If you care nothing
for town or palace perhaps you will bestir yourself for Princess Heru."

A faint glimmer of interest rose upon the alabaster calm of his face at
that name, but it faded instantly, and he said quietly,

"The slaves will save her. She will live. I looked into the book of
her fate yesterday. She will escape, and forget, and sit at another
marriage feast, and be a mother, and give the people yet one