A solemn procession went back to the now deserted valley, but when the spot was reached where his body ought to have been, it was no longer there.
A hungry jackal had dragged it to his lair.
A small stone was then placed at the foot of the trail (now a magnificent highway). It gave the name of the man who had first defied the dark terror of the unknown, that his people might be guided into a new freedom.
And it stated that it had been erected by a grateful posterity.
As it was in the beginning—as it is now—and as some day (so we hope) it shall no longer be.
CHAPTER I
THE TYRANNY OF IGNORANCE
In the year 527 Flavius Anicius Justinianus became ruler of the eastern half of the Roman Empire.
This Serbian peasant (he came from Uskub, the much disputed railroad junction of the late war) had no use for “book-learnin’.” It was by his orders that the ancient Athenian school of philosophy was finally suppressed. And it was he who closed the doors of the only Egyptian temple that had continued to do business centuries after the valley of the Nile had been invaded by the monks of the new Christian faith.