“Look at myself!”—he rose up from the throne, and stood erect, strong, active, as though he were an ivory statue of perpetual youth—“is there one of the young men who seek the Place of Twilight who is more strong or more graceful?—One whom I could not overcome with my hands in the Place of Trials? Will it not still be so for a millennium of the years to be.—And for another—and another?
“And yet I know. I have heard the call that will grow louder. I have felt the desire of the Silence—and it will grow, though today it be powerless. It will conquer, though today it be impotent.
“As you boast today, have we not boasted before you?
“We think to last in the Perpetual Places, but the night will find us, even as it falls on the rain-drenched roof of the world, where our ancestors once crouched and shivered.
“We have conquered cold. We have defeated darkness. We have tamed heat till it licks our feet like a fawning dog. We have resisted corruption. But there is a night of the soul that falls across the procession of unending years, against which, one by one, we fight a battle that is always lost.
“… And every year our race declines, and our women-children are fewer.
“Therefore, each for each, shall you take the Males of our choosing, forgetting the Caprice of Choice, and the Seven Grounds of Rejection. Therefore shall the girl go not to the Place of Preparation, but to the toil of the fish-tanks, and so in turn shall the two that are younger—”
It was at this point that my comrade interrupted, not impatiently, but with a quick suggestion that the discussion to which we were attending was of no immediate assistance, and when I assented somewhat reluctantly—for I had been more interested than she in the situation which was revealed by the disputation—she went on to suggest that the book we were consulting so industriously was not likely to contain anything of a greater value.
She added, “I think that we are not merely wasting time, but incurring a needless peril. I think that there is little doubt that we have penetrated into the Sacred Places where the Dwellers did not wish us to enter, and it may be that we have already encountered the reason for this reluctance. It is not likely that they would wish this information as to the condition of their nation to be known, even to their friends, and still less that there should be any possibility that it might be carried farther to those who are at enmity with them. There may be other things which might be learnt which would be still more to their detriment. It might be fatal to both of us should we be discovered in this occupation, while we have little hope of any resulting gain, for it is not the history of past days which we need to know, but rather the place where your friend is confined, the means of secret approach, the method by which he may be freed, and the safest road of escape to the outer world when we have released him.”
I answered, “You are right, as you usually are. But we have a proverb that we may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, which appears applicable to our present circumstances. If our movements and occupation be within the knowledge of the Dwellers, our prospect of escape is already too small to be interesting. If they have no knowledge, as yet, of where we are, I suggest that we may do well to discover the library from which this volume had apparently been taken, where there may be other books of a more direct utility.”
My companion assented, though doubtfully. “It is an added risk, for an uncertain gain; yet it is true that if we turn back now, we have very little to set against the certain peril which we have incurred by penetrating into these secret places. Nor have we any guidance to direct our search in subterranean ways, the extent of which may be greater even than we have previously anticipated—and even the search for the library which we suppose to exist does not appear to be a very simple enterprise.”
I knew that. The librarian, if such she were, had followed us down the passage, and must have come either from the surface world, or from one of the other passages that we had passed. The latter was the more probable supposition. But which passage should we prefer? And how far should we explore it before turning back and attempting the other?
The search for such a library, even should it exist, might be as difficult as for the ultimate destination at which we were aiming. I saw also that time had become of greater importance to my companion than to myself. I had still the best part of the year before me. She had days only, if she were to return within the limit fixed by the treaty. To both of us it might be of the greatest moment to escape unseen from the Sacred Places, if these were really they. For myself, there was the consideration that, should she return within the allotted period, I should be left without the aid of her counsel, or the support of her vitality.
It was under the influence of these thoughts that I suggested, “Suppose we wait here for a time, watching from the farther side of the passage. It may be that she will wake, and herself return the book to the library, and we would follow unseen. Otherwise, we might follow her in any other direction which she might take, which would be as likely to
