Lord the God of my people. Go now and see the beauty of Babbulkund
before I cry out against her, and then flee swiftly northwards.'

A smouldering fragment fell in upon our camp fire and sent a strange
light into the eyes of the man in rags. He rose at once, and his
tattered cloak swirled up with him like a great wing; he said no
more, but turned round from us instantly southwards, and strode away
into the darkness towards Babbulkund. Then a hush fell upon our
encampment, and the smell of the tobacco of those lands arose. When
the last flame died down in our camp fire I fell asleep, but my rest
was troubled by shifting dreams of doom.

Morning came, and our guides told us that we should come to the city
ere nightfall. Again we passed southwards through the changeless
desert; sometimes we met travellers coming from Babbulkund, with the
beauty of its marvels still fresh in their eyes.

When we encamped near the middle of the day we saw a great number of
people on foot coming towards us running, from the southwards. These
we hailed when they were come near, saying, 'What of Babbulkund?'

They answered: 'We are not of the race of the people of
Babbulkund, but were captured in youth and taken away from the hills
that are to the northward. Now we have all seen in visions of the
stillness the Lord the God of our people calling to us from His
hills, and therefore we all flee northwards. But in Babbulkund King
Nehemoth hath been troubled in the nights by unkingly dreams of
doom, and none may interpret what the dreams portend. Now this is
the dream that King Nehemoth dreamed on the first night of his
dreaming. He saw move through the stillness a bird all black, and