"'Holy Father, I wait with growing impatience to so prolong my days, having all faith in your wondrous power to help me,' I answered with a trembling voice, awed beyond description by the subtle influence this old priest already had over me.
"'Then, at noon upon the morrow, come thou to the Temple on the hill Verosi, and there will I help thee to thy wish. Volinè will show thee thither; and let your coming and your going be in secret, and be done by stealth.'
"'Come hither, Volinè, for I would give my blessing to ye both before I go'—and the old priest, taller by a head and shoulders than I, stood up, and with one hand placed on Volinè's head, and the other on my own, he breathed a silent prayer for us.
"'And now, my children, I must get me gone. The nightly services of our Holy House upon the hill await my ministration, and methinks ye both do tire of an old man's company.'
"'We thank thee much for thy good offices, Holy Echri; and will keep faith with thee to-morrow. Fare-thee-well.'
"Then taking up his staff, and his scroll of holy writings, the old priest, with a smile in which no human passions mingled, slowly went his way.
"'Now, Harry, thou shalt sup with me to-night, as a mark of royal favour,' said Volinè with a smile, 'and then must thou go and rest, and fortify thyself for the morrow.'
"So saying, she led me into another and a smaller room adjoining, where Cyni and her sister Irolne waited to serve us with food. Our meal over, I bade Volinè adieu until the morrow, she promising to meet me at our old tryst in the garden of Siccoth-trees, an hour before noon, whence we might journey together to the gold-domed Temple on the distant hill of Verosi.
"'And so the morrow is to be the most eventful day of all my eventful life,' I mused, as I sat in my chamber looking out upon the Palace grounds, now appearing in all the subtle beauty a tropical night alone can lend. There I sat for an hour or more, deeply pondering over the morrow's mysteries. 'Where and what shall I, Harry Graham, be at the close of that all-fateful day?' My home, my Earth, shone like a steady-burning brilliant in the green-blue southern sky; in a few hours more, and all the ties that bind me thereto will be burnt away—destroyed by fire! Slowly, as I mused, her beautiful point of light sank lower and lower, and finally she dropped behind the garden-trees, and I bade her adieu—farewell, for with earthly eyes I should see her no more. One pang of regret, and one only, shot through my heart quicker than the lightning flash, and was gone; and then I cursed my weakness, for it seemed like a breach of loyalty to Her!
"All night I slept but little, and right glad was I to see the distant mountains, through my eastern window, tipped with ruddy day. I rose up from my couch and, early as it was, summoned Herio, the servant who had been charged with the duty of attending to my personal needs.