"Unto each his own appointed work, and his own appointed fate, and the reward which he hath merited. Now peace be with thee!"
He turned away and passed onward into the falling night.
Thereafter the world unrolled itself between them, for they never met again.
Wrapped in his cloak, Nicanor lay and stared at the stars above him, and pondered those things which he had heard. And, because again he could not understand, he put upon them his own interpretation. But he at once began to make a tale about that old man, with his silver beard and his smiling eyes; and so he fell asleep, thinking that that was all there was in it.
When he awoke at break of dawn, he was inclined to think the whole a dream. But there was a new and softer mood upon him, greatly surprising to himself, and the black soul within him was tamed and stilled. So, in blindly superstitious obedience to the word of the strange old man, he turned his face away from Londinium and all that he longed to find there, back toward the life which was his, and the work which was his, and the Isle of Brambles in the fords.
And so came Fate, hard following on his heels.
II
For out of the gray mists of morning came soldiers, six or eight, with ring of weapons and shuffling thud of feet; and with them was a centurion in command. These overtook Nicanor where he went slowly back toward Thorney; and the centurion laid a rough hand upon him and bade him halt. Nicanor turned; but before he could ask angrily why they had stopped him, his wrists were fast in handcuffs and he was a prisoner in chains. He turned upon the centurion.
"Now what is this? I have done no wrong. I demand release!"