A turn to the left through a watergate defended by towers of wood and mud, and we were in the city harbour itself;boats of many kinds moored on every side; quaint craft from the gulfs and bays of Nowhere, full of unheard-of merch-andise, and manned by strange-faced crews, every vessel a romance of nameless seas, an epitome of an undiscovered world, and every moment the scene grew busier as the breakfast smoke arose, and wharf and gangway set to work upon the day's labours.
Our boat--loaded, as it turned out, with spoil from Seth--was run to a place of honour at the bottom of the town square, and was an object of much curiosity to a small crowd which speedily collected and lent a hand with the mooring ropes, the while chatting excitedly with the crew about further tribute and the latest news from overseas. At the same time a swarthy barbarian, whose trappings showed him to be some sort of functionary, came down to our "captain,"much wagging of heads and counting of notched sticks taking place between them.
I, indeed, was apparently the least interesting item of the cargo, and this was embarrassing. No hero likes to be ne-glected, it is fatal to his part. I had said my prayers and steeled myself to all sorts of fine endurance on the way up, and here, when it came to the crisis, no one was anxious to play the necessary villain. They just helped me ashore civilly enough, the captain nodded his head at me, mutter-ing something in an indifferent tone to the functionary about a ghost who had wandered overseas and begged a passage up the canal; the group about the quay stared a little, but that was all.
Once I remember seeing a squatting, life-size heathen idol hoisted from a vessel's hold and deposited on a sugar-box on a New York quay. Some ribald passer-by put a battered felt hat upon Vishnu's sacred curls, and there the poor image sat, an alien in an indifferent land, a sack across its shoulders, a "billycock" upon its head, and honoured at most with a passing stare. I thought of that lonely image as al-most as lonely I stood on the Thither men's quay, without the support of friends or heroics, wondering what to do next.
However, a cheerful disposition is sometimes better than a banking account, and not having the one I cultivated the other, sunning myself amongst the bales for a time, and then, since none seemed interested in me, wandered off into the town, partly to satisfy my curiosity, and partly in the vague hope of ascertaining if my princess was really here, and, if possible, getting sight of her.
Meanwhile it turned hot with a supernatural, heavy sort of heat altogether, I overheard passersby exclaiming, out of the common, and after wandering for an hour through gardens and endless streets of thatched huts, I was glad enough to throw myself down in the shadow of some trees on the outskirts of the great central pile of buildings, a whole village in itself of beam-built towers and dwelling-place, suggesting by its superior size that it might actually be Ar-hap's palace.
Hotter and hotter it grew, while a curious secondary sunrise in the west, the like of which I never saw before seemed to add to the heat, and heavier and heavier my eye-lids, till I dozed at last, and finally slept uncomfortably for a time.
Rousing up suddenly, imagine my surprise to see sitting, chin on knees, about a yard away, a slender girlish figure, infinitely out of place in that world of rough barbarians.
Was it possible? Was I dreaming? No, there was no doubt about it, she was a girl of the Hither folk, slim and pretty, but with a wonderfully sad look in her gazelle eyes, and scarcely a sign of the indolent happiness of Seth in the pale little face regarding me so fixedly.
"Good gracious, miss," I said, still rubbing my eyes and doubting my senses, "have you dropped from the skies? You are the very last person I expected to see in this barbarian place.""And you too, sir. Oh, it is lovely to see one so newly from home, and free-seeming--not a slave.""How did you know I was from Seth?""Oh, that was easy enough," and with a little laugh she pointed to a pebble lying between us, on which was a piece of battered sweetmeat in a perforated bamboo box. Poor An had given me something just like that in a playful mood, and I had kept it in my pocket for her sake, being, as you will have doubtless observed, a sentimental young man, and now I clapped my hand where it should have been, but it was gone.
"Yes," said my new friend, "that is yours. I smelt the sweetmeat coming up the hill, and crossed the grass until Ifound you here asleep. Oh, it was lovely! I took it from your pocket, and white Seth rose up before my swimming eyes, even at the scent of it. I am Si, well named, for that in our land means sadness, Si, the daughter of Prince Hath's chief sweetmeat-maker, so I should know something of such stuff. May I, please, nibble a little piece?""Eat it all, my lass, and welcome. How came you here?
