“At any rate, Leo, why should she not still be sufficiently under its influence to cause her, without any fault or seeking of her own, to fall madly in love at first sight with a man whom, after all, she has always loved?”

“The argument seems sound enough, Horace, and if so I am sorry for the Khania, who hasn’t much choice in the matter—­been forced into it, so to speak.”

“Yes, but meanwhile your foot is in a trap again.  Guard yourself, Leo, guard yourself.  I believe that this is a trial sent to you, and doubtless there will be more to follow.  But I believe also that it would be better for you to die than to make any mistake.”

“I know it well,” he answered; “and you need not be afraid.  Whatever this Khania may have been to me in the past—­if she was anything at all—­that story is done with.  I seek Ayesha, and Ayesha alone, and Venus herself shall not tempt me from her.”

Then we began to speak with hope and fear of that mysterious Hesea who had sent the letter from the Mountain, commanding the Shaman Simbri to meet us:  the priestess or spirit whom he declared was “mighty from of old” and had “servants in the earth and air.”

Presently the prow of our barge bumped against the bank of the river, and looking round I saw that Simbri had left the boat in which he sat and was preparing to enter ours.  This he did, and, placing himself gravely on a seat in front of us, explained that nightfall was coming on, and he wished to give us his company and protection through the dark.

“And to see that we do not give him the slip in it,” muttered Leo.

Then the drivers whipped up their ponies, and we went on again.

“Look behind you,” said Simbri presently, “and you will see the city where you will sleep to-night.”

We turned ourselves, and there, about ten miles away, perceived a flat-roofed town of considerable, though not of very great size.  Its position was good, for it was set upon a large island that stood a hundred feet or more above the level of the plain, the river dividing into two branches at the foot of it, and, as we discovered afterwards, uniting again beyond.

The vast mound upon which this city was built had the appearance of being artificial, but very possibly the soil whereof it was formed had been washed up in past ages during times of flood, so that from a mudbank in the centre of the broad river it grew by degrees to its present proportions.  With the exception of a columned and towered edifice that crowned the city and seemed to be encircled by gardens, we could see no great buildings in the place.

“How is the city named?” asked Leo of Simbri.

“Kaloon,” he answered, “as was all this land even when my fore-fathers, the conquerors, marched across the mountains and took it more than two thousand years ago.  They kept the ancient title, but the territory of the Mountain they called Hes, because they said that the loop upon yonder peak was the symbol of a goddess of this name whom their general worshipped.”