towards the hills, their feet ankle-deep in the soft fresh moss,
while the air tasted like a cool draught and a myriad of earthy
odors rose up and encircled them. Snipe and reed birds were noisy
in the hollows and from the misty tundra lakes came the honking of
brant. After their weary weeks on shipboard, the dewy freshness
livened them magically, cleansing from their memories the recent
tragedy, so that the girl became herself again.

"Where are we going?" she asked, at the end of an hour, pausing
for breath.

"Why, to the Midas, of course," they said; and one of them vowed
recklessly, as he drank in the beauty of her clear eyes and the
grace of her slender, panting form, that he would gladly give his
share of all its riches to undo what he had done one night on the
Santa Maria.




CHAPTER V

WHEREIN A MAN APPEARS


In the lives of countries there are crises where, for a breath,
destinies lie in the laps of the gods and are jumbled, heads or
tails. Thus are marked distinctive cycles like the seven ages of a
man, and though, perhaps, they are too subtle to be perceived at
the time, yet, having swung past the shadowy milestones, the