le with life and death, and years and history,
with the welfare of his country in one hand, and the future of a woman
who is as life to him in the other. But again I told myself that
the hours flew, and laid hold of the jewel which is studded into the
forehead of the image with one hand, and then stretching out, thrust at
a corner of the eyebrow with the other. With a faint creak the massive
eyeball below, a stone that I could barely have covered with my back,
swung inwards. I stepped off the stair, and climbed into the gap. Inside
was the chamber which is hollowed from the head of the Goddess.

It was the first time I had seen this most secret place, but the aspect
of it was familiar to me from my teaching, and I knew where to find the
thing which would fill my need. Yet, occupied though I might be with the
stress of what was to befall, I could not help having a wonder and an
admiration for the cleverness with which it was hidden.

High as I was in the learning and mysteries of the Priestly Clan, the
structure of what I had come to fetch was hidden from me. Beforetime I
had known only of their power and effect; and now that I came to handle
them, I saw only some roughly rounded balls, like nut kernels, grass
green in colour, and in hardness like the wax of bees. There were three
of these balls in the hidden place, and I took the one that was needful,
concealing the others as I had found them. It may have been a drug, it
may have been something more; what exactly it was I did not know; only
of its power and effect I was sure, as that was set forth plainly in
the teaching I had learned; and so I put it in a pouch of my garment,
returning by the way I had come, and replacing all things in due order
behind me.

One look I took at the image of the Goddess before I left the temple.
The jet of earth-breath which burns eternally from the central altar
lit her from head to toe, and threw sparkles from the great jewel in
her forehead. Vast she was, and calm and peaceful beyond all human
imaginings, a perfect symbolism of that rest and quietness which many
sigh for so vainly on this rude earth, but which they will never attain
unless by their piety they earn a place in the hereafter, where our Lady
the Moon and the rest of the High Ones reign in Their eternal glorious
majesty.

It was with tired dragging limbs that I made my way back again to the
royal pyramid, and at last came to my own private chamber. Ylga awaited
me there