e replied.

"Suppose a strange people were to fall upon you, and take everything you
have!"

"No strange people will dare; they are all horribly afraid of our
princess. She it is who keeps us safe and free and rich!"

Every now and then as she spoke, she would stop and look behind her.

I asked why her people had such a hatred of strangers. She answered that
the presence of a stranger defiled the city.

"How is that?" I said.

"Because we are more ancient and noble than any other
nation.--Therefore," she added, "we always turn strangers out before
night."

"How, then, can you take me into your house?" I asked.

"I will make an exception of you," she replied.

"Is there no place in the city for the taking in of strangers?"

"Such a place would be pulled down, and its owner burned. How is purity
to be preserved except by keeping low people at a proper distance?
Dignity is such a delicate thing!"

She told me that their princess had reigned for thousands of years; that
she had power over the air and the water as well as the earth--and, she
believed, over the fire too; that she could do what she pleased, and was
answerable to nobody.

When at length she was willing to risk the attempt, we took our way
through lanes and narrow passages, and reached her door without having
met a single live creature. It was in a wider street, between two
tall houses, at the top of a narrow, steep stair, up which she climbed
slowly, and I followed. Ere we reached the top, however, she seemed to
take fright, and darted up the rest of the steps: I arrived just in time
to have the door closed in my face, and stood confounded on the landing,
where was about length enough, between the opposite doors of the two
houses, for a man to lie down.

Weary, and not scrupling to defile Bulika with my presence, I took
advantage of the shelter, poor as it was.

CHAPTER XXIV. THE WHITE LEOPARDESS

At the foot of the stair lay the moonlit street, and I could hear the
unwholesome, inhospitable wind blowing about below. But not a breath of
it entered my retreat, and I was composing myself to rest, when suddenly
my eyes opened, and there was the head of the shining creature I had
seen following the Shadow, just rising above the uppermost step! The
moment she caught sight of my eyes, she stopped and began to retire,
tail foremost. I sprang up; whereupon, having no room to turn, she threw
herself backward, head over tail, scrambled to her fee