Kurri, the Captain of the Sidonians, who was now the Queen's Jeweller.
Thither Rei went, for Kurri was lodged with the servants in a court of
the Royal House, and as the old man came he heard the sound of hammers
beating on metal. There, in the shadow which the Palace wall cast into a
little court, there was the Wanderer; no longer in his golden mail, but
with bare arms, and dressed in such a light smock as the workmen of Khem
were wont to wear.

The Wanderer was bending over a small brazier, whence a flame and a
light blue smoke arose and melted into the morning light. In his hand he
held a small hammer, and he had a little anvil by him, on which lay
one of the golden shoulder-plates of his armour. The other pieces were
heaped beside the brazier. Kurri, the Sidonian, stood beside him, with
graving tools in his hands.

"Hail to thee, Eperitus," cried Rei, calling him by the name he had
chosen to give himself. "What makest thou here with fire and anvil?"

"I am but furbishing up my armour," said the Wanderer, smiling. "It has
more than one dint from the fight in the hall;" and he pointed to his
shield, which was deeply scarred across the blazon of the White Bull,
the cognizance of dead Paris, Priam's son. "Sidonian, blow up the fire."

Kurri crouched on his hams and blew the blaze to a white heat with
a pair of leathern bellows, while the Wanderer fitted the plates and
hammered at them on the anvil, making the jointures smooth and strong,
talking meanwhile with Rei.

"Strange work for a prince, as thou must be in Alybas, whence thou
comest," quoth Rei, leaning on his long rod of cedar, headed with an