in--from all lands--and trod them beneath its great feet, crushing them,
while they lifted themselves to it and threw themselves--and prayed to
it for the new day--that they had come so far to seek.

But when Achilles presented his ticket for the boy, at the hospital
door, it was a woman of his own race who met him, dark-eyed and
strong--and smiled at him a flash of sympathy. "Yes--he is doing well.
They operated at once. Come and see. But you must not speak to him." She
led him cautiously down the long corridor between the beds. "See, he is
asleep." She bent over him, touching the bandage. Beneath it, the dark
skin was pallid, but the breath came easily from the sleeping lips.

She smiled at Achilles, guiding him from the room, ignoring the tears
that looked at her. "He is doing well, you see. It was pressure that
caused the fever, the bone was not injured. He will recover quickly.
Yes. We are glad!"

And Achilles, out under the clear sky, raised his face and caught the
sound of the city--its murmured, innumerable toil and the great clang
of wheels turning. And he drew a deep, quick breath. A city of power
and swift care for its own. The land of many hands reaching out to the
world. And Achilles's head lifted itself under the sky; and a mighty
force knit within him--a deep, quiet force out of the soul of the
past--pledging itself.




XV