Of all the rooms this was the brightest and the most beautiful.  The walls were covered with a pink-flowered Lucca damask, patterned with birds and dotted with dainty blossoms of silver; the furniture was of massive silver, festooned with florid wreaths, and swinging Cupids; in front of the two large fire-places stood great screens broidered with parrots and peacocks, and the floor, which was of sea-green onyx, seemed to stretch far away into the distance.  Nor was he alone.  Standing under the shadow of the doorway, at the extreme end of the room, he saw a little figure watching him.  His heart trembled, a cry of joy broke from his lips, and he moved out into the sunlight.  As he did so, the figure moved out also, and he saw it plainly.—­The Birthday of the Infanta.

A PROTECTED COUNTRY

’The kings of each city levied tolls on us, but would not suffer us to enter their gates.  They threw us bread over the walls, little maize-cakes baked in honey and cakes of fine flour filled with dates.  For every hundred baskets we gave them a bead of amber.

’When the dwellers in the villages saw us coming, they poisoned the wells and fled to the hill-summits.  We fought with the Magadae who are born old, and grow younger and younger every year, and die when they are little children; and with the Laktroi who say that they are the sons of tigers, and paint themselves yellow and black; and with the Aurantes who bury their dead on the tops of trees, and themselves live in dark caverns lest the Sun, who is their god, should slay them; and with the Krimnians who worship a crocodile, and give it earrings of green glass, and feed it with butter and fresh fowls; and with the Agazonbae, who are dog-faced; and with the Sibans, who have horses’ feet, and run more swiftly than horses.  A third of our company died in battle, and a third died of want.  The rest murmured against me, and said that I had brought them an evil fortune.  I took a horned adder from beneath a stone and let it sting me.  When they saw that I did not sicken they grew afraid.

’In the fourth month we reached the city of Illel.  It was night-time when we came to the grove that is outside the walls, and the air was sultry, for the Moon was travelling in Scorpion.  We took the ripe pomegranates from the trees, and brake them, and drank their sweet juices.  Then we lay down on our carpets, and waited for the dawn.

’And at dawn we rose and knocked at the gate of the city.  It was wrought out of red bronze, and carved with sea-dragons and dragons that have wings.  The guards looked down from the battlements and asked us our business.  The interpreter of the caravan answered that we had come from the island of Syria with much merchandise.  They took hostages, and told us that they would open the gate to us at noon, and bade us tarry till then.