without a qualm of longing.

But I had been trained enough to show none of these emotions
on my face, and when the old man came up to me, I stood my ground
and gave him the salutation prescribed between our ranks, which he
returned to me with circumstance and accuracy. The crowd fell
back, being driven away by the ineffable force of the Symbol,
leaving us alone in the middle of a ring. Even Nais, though she
was a priest's daughter, was ignorant of the Mysteries, and could
not withstand its force. And so we two men stood there alone
together, with the glow of the Symbol bathing us, and lighting
up the sea of ravenous faces that watched.

The people were quick to put their natural explanation on the
scene. "A spy!" they began to roar out. "A spy! Zaemon salutes
him as a Priest!"

Zaemon faced round on them with a queer look on his grim old
face. "Aye," he said, "this is a Priest. If I give you his name,
you might have further interest. This is the Lord Deucalion."

The word was picked up and yelled amongst them with a thousand
emotions. But at least they were loyal to their policy; they had
decided that Deucalion was their enemy; they had already expended
a navy for his destruction; and now that he was ringed in by their
masses, they lusted to tear him into rags with their fingers. But
rave and rave though they might against me, the glare from the
Symbol drove them shuddering back as though it had been a
lava-stream; and Zaemon was not the man to hand me over to their
fury until he had delivered formal sentence as the emissary of our