believed it save I, who
did not believe."

"Why not, Heliodore?"

"Because I could not feel that you were dead. Therefore I fought for my
life, who otherwise, after we were conquered and ruined and my father
was slain fighting nobly, should have stabbed, not that eunuch, but
myself. Then later, in this tomb, I came to know that you were not dead.
The other lost ones I could feel about me from time to time, but you
never, you who would have been the first to seek me when my soul was
open to such whisperings. So I lived on when all else would have died,
because hope burned in me like a lamp unquenchable. And at last you
came! Oh! at last you came!"

CHAPTER IV

THE CALIPH HARUN

Here there is an absolute blank in my story. One of those walls of
oblivion of which I have spoken seems to be built across its path. It is
as though a stream had plunged suddenly from some bright valley into the
bosom of a mountain side and there vanished from the ken of man. What
happened in the tomb after Heliodore had ended her tale; whether we
departed thence together or left her there a while; how we escaped
from Kurna, and by what good fortune or artifice we came safely to
Alexandria, I know not. As to all these matters my vision fails me
utterly. So far as I am concerned, they are buried beneath the dust
of time. I know as little of them as I know of where and how I slept
between my life as Olaf and this present life of mine; that is, nothing
at all. Yet in this way or in that the stream did win through the
mountain, since beyond all grows clear again.

Once more I stood upon the deck of the _Diana_ in the harbour of
Alexandria. With me were Martina and Heliodore. Heliodore's face was
stained and she was dressed as a boy, such a harlequin lad as singers
and mountebanks often take in their company. The ship was ready to start
and the wind served. Yet we could not sail because of the lack of some
permission. A Moslem galley patrolled the harbour and threatened to sink
us if we dared to weigh without this paper. The mate had gone ashore
with a bribe. We waited and waited. At length the captain, Menas, who
stood by me, whispered into my ear,

"Be calm; he comes; all is well."

Then I heard the mate shout: "I have the writing under seal," and Menas
gave the order to cast off the ropes that held the ship to the quay.
One of the sailors came up and reported to Menas that their companion,
Cosmas, was missing. It seemed that he had