of the sun lie behind the westward pine-trees, and as we came we drove,
year by year, those fays, those spent triflers, back before us. All this
land was theirs once, and more and more towards our old home. You may
still see traces of harbours dug and cities built thousands of years
ago, when the Hither folk were living men and women--not their shadows.
The big water outside stops us for a space, but," he added, laughing
gruffly and taking a draught of a strong beer he had been heating by the
fire, "King Ar-hap has their pretty noses between his fingers; he takes
tribute and girls while he gets ready--they say he is nearly ready this
summer, and if he is, it will not be much of an excuse he will need to
lick up the last of those triflers, those pretences of manhood."

Then we fell to talking of Ar-hap, his subjects and town, and I learned
the tides had swept me a long way to the northward of the proper route
between the capitals of the two races, that day they carried me into the
Dead-Men's Ice, as these entertainers of mine called the northern snows.
To get back to the place previously aimed at, where the woodmen road came
out on the seashore, it was necessary to go either by boat, a roundabout
way through a maze of channels, "as tangled as the grass roots in autumn";
or, secondly, by a couple of days' marching due southward across the
base of the great peninsula we were on, and so strike blue water again
at the long-sought-for harbour.

As I lay dozing and dreaming on a pile of strange furs in the corner of
the hut that evening I made up my mind for the land journey tomorrow,
having had enough for the moment of nautical Martian adventures; and this
point settled, fell again to wondering what made me follow so reckless
a quest in the way I was doing; asking myself again and again what was
gazelle-eyed Heru to me after all, and why should it matter even as
much as the value of a brass waist-coat button whether Hath had her