s who sang here so gladly as they marched
upward? Surely they, are living?"

"They have forgotten."

"Where then are the young children whose fathers taught them this way
and bade them remember it. Have they forgotten?"

"They have forgotten."

"But why have you alone kept the hour of visitation? Why have you not
turned back with your companions? How have you walked here solitary day
after day?"

She turned to me with a divine regard, and laying her hand gently over
mine, she said, "I remember always."

Then I saw a few wild-flowers blossoming beside the path.

We drew near to the Source, and entered into the chamber hewn in the
rock. She kneeled and bent over the sleeping spring. She murmured again
and again the beautiful name of him who had died to find it. Her voice
repeated the song that had once been sung by many voices. Her tears fell
softly on the spring, and as they fell it seemed as if the water stirred
and rose to meet her bending face, and when she looked up it was as if
the dew had fallen on a flower.

We came very slowly down the path along the river Carita, and rested
often beside it, for surely, I thought, the rising of the spring had
sent a little more water down its dry bed, and some of it must flow on
to the city. So it was almost evening when we came back to the streets.
The people were hurrying to and fro, for it was the day before the
choosing of new Princes of Water; and there was much dispute about them,
and strife over the building of new cisterns to hold the stores of rain
which might fall in the next year. But none cared for us, as we passed
by like strangers, and we came unnoticed to the door of the house.

Then a great desire of love and sorrow moved within my breast, and I
said to Ruamie, "You are the life of the city, for you alone remember.
Its secret is in your heart, and your faithful keeping of the hours of
visitation is the only cause why the river has not failed altogether and
the curse of desolation returned. Let me stay with you, sweet soul of
all the flowers that are dead, and I will cherish you forever. Together
we will visit the Source every day; and we shall turn the people, by our
lives and by our words, back to that which they have forgotten."

There was a smile in her eyes so deep that its meaning cannot be spoken,
as she lifted my hand to her lips, and answered,

"Not so, dear friend, for who can tell whether life or death will come
to the city, whether its peop