But, from the morning of his awakening in the tartan bush, his recollections, although terrible, are clear.
His first thoughts on arousing himself were: “Lilla! And my baby!”
So, pushing the protecting leaves to one side, he set out to the northward. A thousand stads away lay Lake Luno and the royal family. Four days’ travel by kerkool. Fifty days’ travel on foot under favorable circumstances! And here he was essaying it, battered and wounded, without antennae, without food, without an umbrella to shield him if the scorching sun should burst through the protecting clouds; in fact, with nothing but an army revolver, four cartridges, and an unconquerable will.
Myles Cabot recited to himself:
“If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you,
Except the Will that says to them: ‘Hold on’!”
He could and he would! And so he set out on that thousand-mile journey.
His plan was to reach the nearby suburb of Lai, where he had many friends. Surely one of these would lend him fresh raiment and a kerkool in which to overtake the army of Buh Tedn.