“Had I, with a wife depending on me, any other choice? I asked his pleasure. It was to find you when you came in here from some distant part of the land, and deliver to you his message.
“‘Then tell me where is the meeting place,’ said I, ‘and when.’
“‘There is none appointed, nor is the day fixed,’ said he. ‘You must watch and search always for him. But when he comes, you will be guided to his place.’ Well, Deucalion, I think I was guided, but how, I do not know. But now I have found you, and if there’s such a thing as gratitude, I ask you to put in your word with Zaemon that this deadness be taken away from my hand. It’s an awful thing for a man to be forced to go through life like this, for no real fault of his own. And Zaemon could cure it from where he sat, if he was so minded.”
“You seem still to have a very full faith in some of the old Gods’ priests,” I said. “But so far, I do not see that your errand is done. I have had no message yet.”
“Why, the message is so simple that I do not see why he could not have got some one else to carry it. You are to make a great blaze. You may fire the grasses of the plain in front of this wood if you choose. And on the night which follows, you are to go round to that flank of the Sacred Mountain away from the city where the rocks run down sheer, and there they will lower a rope and haul you up to their hands above.”
“It seems easy, and I thank you for your pains. I will ask Zaemon that your hand may be restored to you.”
“You shall have my prayers if it is. And look, Deucalion, it is a small matter, and it would be less likely to slip your memory if you saw to it at once on your landing. Later, you may be disturbed. Phorenice is bound to pull you down off your perch up there now she has made her mind to it. She never fails, once she has set her hand to a thing. Indeed, if she was no Goddess at birth, she is making herself into one very rapidly. She has got all the ancient learning of our Priests, and more besides. She has discovered the Secret of Life these recent months—”
“She has found that?” I cried, fairly startled. “How? Tell me how? Only the Three know that. It is beyond our knowledge even who are members of the Seven.”
“I know nothing of her means. But she has the secret, and now she is as good an immortal (so she says) as any of them. Well, Deucalion, it is dangerous for me to be missing from my temple overlong, so I will go. You will carry that matter we spoke of in your mind? It means much to me.”—His eye wandered over my ragged person—“And if you think my service is of value to you—”
“You see me poor, my man, and practically destitute.”