uth.

"Take me in your arms, Asha."

Feeling very foolish, but unable to refuse for some mysterious reason,
Asha bent and picked up the child.

"O man, temper thy judgment with patience and wisdom."

Asha knew now that it was the child's voice truly, and at last asked:

"Why do you come in such a weak and helpless guise, O Lord Mazda? I had
hoped to see a God appear in stronger shape."

"Nevertheless, through this helpless child in your arms, this city shall
be overthrown, yourself made King of Kings, and I shall deliver all the
slaves and strike off all the bonds from the old time. Mazda will have
this city for his own, or it will be destroyed forever."

Now Asha was filled with wonder, and asked the babe of many abstruse
things, receiving answers beyond his understanding. So, at last
convinced, he put the babe down, turned to Too-che.

"Listen, maiden who in my eyes is without fault. I cannot go to my King
and tell him one word of what this child has revealed, for I would only
die with both of you as a liar and worse. You must take this child and
hide him away from the eyes and the ears of the men of this city. You in
your innocence do not understand the ways of kings and courts and
warriors and such things. Flee, for if you are here tomorrow, you will
die and your child will die with you."

Asha took himself out, then, and made his way sadly along the crowded
streets to his home. There he packed up a few belongings and left to go
into hiding himself; for he knew better than to try to tell So-qi any
such cock-and-bull story. Yet if he went at all to So-qi, he had to tell
something, and either way someone would be doomed, if not himself.

Too-che took up the babe and fled through the city by night to the home
of one Chojon, a maker of songs. This man had long made love to her with
his poetry and his voice from afar, and she knew he would hide her and
protect her. Her heart was in her throat, because she wondered if he
would believe in her virtue now that she had a child, or in her love for
him when he felt that another had given her child when he had been
denied the privilege.

* * * * *

Slender and dark-eyed and handsome he stood in his doorway, looking upon
this girl who had come to him with her babe in her arms. A babe by
another! His heart was hurt, tears came unbidden to his eyes as he
turned and allowed her to enter. For a long time he could not speak, the
shame and t