the gradually brightening heavens ... "Why not go there at once
... NOW!"




CHAPTER IX.

THE FIELD OF FLOWERS.


This idea had no sooner entered his mind than he prepared to act
upon it,--though only a short while previously, feeling thoroughly
overcome by fatigue, he had resolved to wait till next day before
setting out for the chief goal of his long pilgrimage. But now,
strangely enough, all sense of weariness had suddenly left him,--a
keen impatience burned in his veins,--and a compelling influence
stronger than himself seemed to urge him on to the instant
fulfillment of his purpose. The more he thought about it the more
restless he became, and the more eagerly desirous to prove, with
the least possible delay, the truth or the falsity of his mystic
vision at Danel. By the light of the small lamp left on the table
he consulted his map,--the map Heliobas had traced,--and also the
written directions that accompanied it--though these he had read
so often over and over again that he knew them by heart. They were
simply and concisely worded thus: "On the east bank of the
Euphrates, nearly opposite the 'Hermitage,' there is the sunken
fragment of a bronze Gate, formerly belonging to the Palace of the
Babylonian Kings. Three miles and a half to the southwest of this
fragment and in a direct line with it, straight across country,