The round head of flesh and bone floated upon the deep water of the bath.

"Why should I move?" rolled its thoughts, bewitched by solitude. "The earth itself is moving.

"Summer and winter and winter and summer I have travelled in my head, saying—'All secrets, all wonders, lie within the breast!' But now that is at an end, and to-morrow I go upon a journey.

"I have been accustomed to finding something in nothing—how do I know if I am equipped for a larger horizon!…"

And suddenly the little creature chanted aloud:—

"The strange things of travel,
The East and the West,
The hill beyond the hill,—
They lie within the breast!"

PART I

THE BLACK HUT AT BAR

CHAPTER I

THE TRAVELLER