which aid so holy a cause--have added very materially to
the ardour with which these common people pursue the cult of the Gods.
But for myself I could not free my mind to the necessary clearness for
following these abstruse studies. During that voyage home from Yucatan I
had communed with them with growing insight; but now my mind was not my
own. Nais had a lien upon it, and refused to be ousted; and, in truth,
her sweet trespass was my chief solace.

But at last my longing could no further be denied. Through one of
the arrow-slit windows of my tree-house I could see far away a great
mountain top whitened with perpetual snow, which our Lord the Sun dyed
with blood every night of His setting. Night after night I used to watch
that ruddy light with wide straining eyes. Night after night I used to
remember that in days agone when I was entering upon the priesthood, it
had been my duty to adore our great Lord as He rose for His day behind
the snows of that very mountain. And always the thought followed on
these musings, that from that distant crest I could see across the
continent to the Sacred Mount, which had the city below it where I had
buried my love alive.

So at last I gave way and set out, and a perilous journey I made of it.
In the heavy mists, which hung always on the lower ground, my way lay
blind before me, and I was constantly losing it. Indeed, to say that
I traversed three times the direct distance is setting a low estimate.
Throughout all those swamps the great lizards hunted, and as the country
was new to me I did not know places of harbour, and a hundred times was
within an ace of being spied and devoured at a mouthful. But the High
Gods still desired me for Their own purposes, and blinded the great
beasts' eyes when I slunk to cover as they passed. Twice rivers of
scalding water roared boiling across my path, and I had to delay till I
could collect enough black timber from the forests to build rafts that
would give me dry ferriage.

It will be seen then that my journey was in a way infinitely tedious,
but to me, after all those years of waiting, the time passed on winged
feet. I had been separated from my love till I could bear the strain
no longer; let me but see from a distance the place where she lay, and
feast my eyes upon it for a while, and then I could go back to my abode
in the tree and there remain patiently awaiting the will of the Gods.

The air grew more chilly as I began to come out above