involved separation from Aurora, long separation, and without
communication, since letters could be sent only by special messenger,
and how should he pay a messenger? It was this terrible thought of
separation which had so long kept him inactive. In the end the
bitterness of hopelessness forced him to face it. He began the canoe,
but kept his purpose secret, especially from her, lest tears should melt
his resolution.

There were but two ways of travelling open to him: on foot, as the
hunters did, or by the merchant vessels. The latter, of course, required
payment, and their ways were notoriously coarse. If on foot he could not
cross the Lake, nor visit the countries on either shore, nor the
islands; therefore he cut down the poplar and commenced the canoe.
Whither he should go, and what he should do, was entirely at the mercy
of circumstances. He had no plan, no route.

He had a dim idea of offering his services to some distant king or
prince, of unfolding to him the inventions he had made. He tried to
conceal from himself that he would probably be repulsed and laughed at.
Without money, without a retinue, how could he expect to be received or
listened to? Still, he must go; he could not help himself, go he must.

As he chopped and chipped through the long weeks of early spring, while
the easterly winds bent the trees above him, till the buds unfolded and
the leaves expanded--while his hands were thus employed, the whole map,
as it were, of the known countries seemed to pass without volition
before his mind. He saw the cities along the shores of the great Lake;
he saw their internal condition, the weakness of the social fabric, the
misery of the bondsmen. The uncertain action of the League, the only
thread which bound the world together; the threatening aspect of the