THE FITTEST[8]
slaves; but the most were slain. Neither could we bother with their women and others left behind.
Now, by this time the empire was as one man in its worship of me. I had been emperor but a year, and already I had made it certain that only the men of Vlamaland, and no others, should live in the sight of Jon. So well thought they of me, I might fair have sat upon my reputation, and have spent my last days in feasting like the man before me.
But I was still too young and full of energy to take my ease. I found myself more and more restless; I had naught to do; it had all been done. At last I sent for old Maka.
"Ye put me up to this, ye old fraud," I told him, pretending to be wrathful. "Now set me another task, or I'll have thy head!"
He knew me too well to be affrighted. He said that he had been considering my case of late.
"Strokor, thy father was right when he told thee to have naught to do with women. That is to say, he were right at the time. Were he alive today"—I forgot to say that my father was killed in the battle across the sea—"he would of a certainty say that it were high time for thee to pick thy mate.
"Remember, Strokor; great though thou art, yet when death taketh thee thy greatness is become a memory. Methinks ye should leave something more substantial behind."
It took but little thought to convince me that Maka were right once more. Fact; as soon as I thought upon it, it were a woman that I was restless for. The mere notion instantly gave me something worth while to look forward to.
"Jon bless thee!" I told the old man. "Ye have named both the trouble and the remedy. I will attend to it at once."