by the way?"

The other replied: "I saw the Desert white with bones--I found the way
set among many graves."

"And the hands of the dead?"--asked Thyself, in that voice so like the
wind that stirred the leaves of the forest--"And the hands of the dead?"

And the Pilgrim answered now with understanding: "The hands of the dead
held fast to their treasures--held fast to their Wealth of Traditions,
to their Holy Prejudices, to the Sacred Opinions, Customs, Favors and
Honors of Men."

Then Thyself, the appointed Keeper of the Temple of Truth, went quietly
aside from the path. With slow and reverent step, with bowed uncovered
head, the Pilgrim crossed the threshold and through the high arched
doorway entered the sacred corridors.

But within the Temple, before approaching the altar with his offering,
the Pilgrim was constrained to retire to The Quiet Room, there to spend
the hours until a new day in prayerful meditation. It was there that
this Tale of The Uncrowned King came to him--came to him at the end of
his long pilgrimage across the Desert of Facts--came to him after he had
paid The Price, after he had fulfilled The Law, after he had asked of
Thyself, the Keeper of the Temple, "Why?"

There, in The Quiet Room in the Temple of Truth on the
Outer-Edge-Of-Things, the Voices to the Pilgrim told this Tale of The
Uncrowned King.