But for me the captain poured into a little glass some heavy yellow wine from a small jar which he kept apart among his sacred things.  Thick and sweet it was, even like honey, yet there was in its heart a mighty, ardent fire which had authority over souls of men.  It was made, the captain told me, with great subtlety by the secret craft of a family of six who lived in a hut on the mountains of Hian Min.  Once in these mountains, he said, he followed the spoor of a bear, and he came suddenly on a man of that family who had hunted the same bear, and he was at the end of a narrow way with precipice all about him, and his spear was sticking in the bear, and the wound not fatal, and he had no other weapon.  And the bear was walking towards the man, very slowly because his wound irked him—­yet he was now very close.  And what the captain did he would not say; but every year as soon as the snows are hard, and travelling is easy on the Hian Min, that man comes down to the market in the plains, and always leaves for the captain in the gate of fair Belzoond a vessel of that priceless secret wine.

And as I sipped the wine and the captain talked, I remembered me of stalwart noble things that I had long since resolutely planned, and my soul seemed to grow mightier within me and to dominate the whole tide of the Yann.  It may be that I then slept.  Or, if I did not, I do not now minutely recollect every detail of that morning’s occupations.  Towards evening, I awoke and wishing to see Perdondaris before we left in the morning, and being unable to wake the captain, I went ashore alone.  Certainly Perdondaris was a powerful city; it was encompassed by a wall of great strength and altitude, having in it hollow ways for troops to walk in, and battlements along it all the way, and fifteen strong towers on it in every mile, and copper plaques low down where men could read them, telling in all the languages of those parts of the Earth—­one language on each plaque—­the tale of how an army once attacked Perdondaris and what befel that army.  Then I entered Perdondaris and found all the people dancing, clad in brilliant silks, and playing on the tambang as they danced.  For a fearful thunderstorm had terrified them while I slept, and the fires of death, they said, had danced over Perdondaris, and now the thunder had gone leaping away large and black and hideous, they said, over the distant hills, and had turned round snarling at them, showing his gleaming teeth, and had stamped, as he went, upon the hill-tops until they rang as though they had been bronze.  And often and again they stopped in their merry dances and prayed to the God they knew not, saying, ’O, God that we know not, we thank Thee for sending the thunder back to his hills.’  And I went on and came to the market-place, and lying there upon the marble pavement I saw the merchant fast asleep and breathing heavily, with his face and the palms of his hands towards the sky, and slaves were fanning