But Sajar-Ho made answer:  ’How can Welleran be dead when he even escaped from two score horsemen with swords that were sworn to slay him, and all sworn upon our country’s gods?’

And Seejar said:  ’This story his father told my grandfather concerning Welleran.  On the day that the fight was lost on the plains of Kurlistan he saw a dying horse near to the river, and the horse looked piteously towards the water but could not reach it.  And the father of my grandfather saw Welleran go down to the river’s brink and bring water from it with his own hand and give it to the horse.  Now we are in as sore a plight as was that horse, and as near to death; it may be that Welleran will pity us, while the King’s axeman cannot because of the commands of the King.’

Then said Sajar-Ho:  ’Thou wast ever a cunning arguer.  Thou broughtest us into this trouble with thy cunning and thy devices, we will see if thou canst bring us out of it.  We will go.’

So news was brought to the King that the two prisoners would go down to Merimna.

That evening the watchers led them to the mountain’s edge, and Seejar and Sajar-Ho went down towards the plain by the way of a deep ravine, and the watchers watched them go.  Presently their figures were wholly hid in the dusk.  Then night came up, huge and holy, out of waste marshes to the eastwards and low lands and the sea; and the angels that watched over all men through the day closed their great eyes and slept, and the angels that watched over all men through the night awoke and ruffled their deep blue feathers and stood up and watched.  But the plain became a thing of mystery filled with fears.  So the two spies went down the deep ravine, and coming to the plain sped stealthily across it.  Soon they came to the line of sentinels asleep upon the sand, and one stirred in his sleep calling on Rollory, and a great dread seized upon the spies and they whispered ‘Rollory lives,’ but they remembered the King’s axeman and went on.  And next they came to the great bronze statue of Fear, carved by some sculptor of the old glorious years in the attitude of flight towards the mountains, calling to her children as she fled.  And the children of Fear were carved in the likeness of the armies of all the trans-Cyresian tribes with their backs towards Merimna, flocking after Fear.  And from where he sat on his horse behind the ramparts the sword of Welleran was stretched out over their heads as ever it was wont.  And the two spies kneeled down in the sand and kissed the huge bronze foot of the statue of Fear, saying:  ‘O Fear, Fear.’  And as they knelt they saw lights far off along the ramparts coming nearer and nearer, and heard men singing of Welleran.  And the purple guard came nearer and went by with their lights, and passed on into the distance round the ramparts still singing of Welleran.  And all the while the two spies clung to the foot of the statue, muttering:  ‘O Fear, Fear.’  But