yonder. Behind those hills lie the blue sea-ridges,
and still beyond, lies the land where I dwelt. Ye gods, the happy
country!" Like a great child he stood, and his breast broke into sobs,
but his eyes glowed with splendid visions. "Apollo's golden shafts
could scarce penetrate the shadowy groves, and Diana's silver arrows
pierced only the tossing treetops. And underfoot the crocus flamed, and
the hyacinth. Flocks and herds fed in pastures rosy with blossoms, and
there were white altars warm with flame in every thicket. There were
dances, and mad revels, and love and laughter"--he paused, and the
splendor died from his face. "And then one starry night--still and clear
it was, and white with frost--fear stalked into the happy haunts, and an
ontreading mystery, benign yet dreadful. And something, I know not what,
drove me forth. _Aie! Aie!_ There is but the moaning of doves when the
glad hymns sounded, and cold ashes and dead drifted leaves on the once
warm altars!"

A sharp pull at his tunic brought his thoughts back to the present. The
child drew him urgently down into the long grass, and laid a finger upon
his lip; and at the touch of the small finger the man trembled through
all his length of limbs, and lay still. Up the road rose a cloud of dust
and the sound of determined feet, and presently a martial figure came in
sight, clad in bronze and leather helmet and cuirass, and carrying an
oblong shield and a short, broad-bladed sword of double edge. Short yet
agile, a soldier every inch, he looked neither to the right nor to the
left, but marched steadily and purposefully upon his business. His
splendid muscles, shining with sweat, gleamed satinwise in the hot sun.
A single unit, he was yet a worthy symbol of a world-wide efficiency.

The man and boy beneath the tree crouched low. "Art afraid?" whispered
the man. And the boy whispered back, "It is he that I hate, and all his
kind." His child-heart beat violently against his side, great beads
stood out upon his forehead, and his hands trembled. "If you but knew
the sorrow in the villages! Aye, in the whole country--because of him!
He takes the bread from the mouths of the pitiful poor--and we are all
so poor! The women and babes starve, but the taxes must be paid. Upon
the aged and the crippled, even, fall heavy burdens. And all because of
him and his kind!"

The man looked at the flushed face and trembling limbs of the boy, and
his own face glowed in a golden smile t