"I have not learnt to run like the wind," he replied. "I have learnt something better than that."
"Few things are better in a race than swiftness," she said.
"True," he answered; "yet I have found the one thing better."
"What is this strange thing?" she asked.
"When we have run the race, thou wilt know," he said.
"I have grown no sluggard," she said, with a toss of her head, as though to warn him that her speed was not a thing to be despised.
"That I can see," he said, as he cast a glance at her straight white limbs and the easy grace of her bearing as she walked beside him. Then they talked of indifferent matters, and each one knew that what they had nearest their hearts they were hiding from each other.
So they came to the palace, and from the lowest to the highest the inmates greeted the stranger with joy. For he had won the hearts of them all by his wit and his genial smile. But they sighed when they heard that he too had come to run in the fatal race.
"Alas!" said the old king, shaking his head, "I had rather not have looked upon thy face again than see thee back on such an errand."