cannot keep."

"Why say you that? When we go down, she is supreme in all the world."

"For a time, and only for a time," Magro answered, gravely. "Yet you
will smile, perchance, when I tell you how it is that I know it.
There was a wise woman who lived in that part of the Tin Islands which
juts forth into the sea, and from her lips I have heard many things, but
not one which has not come aright. Of the fall of our own country,
and even of this battle, from which we now return, she told me clearly.
There is much strange lore amongst these savage peoples in the west of
the land of Tin."

"What said she of Rome?"

"That she also would fall, even as we, weakened by her riches and her
factions."

Gisco rubbed his hands. "That at least makes our own fall less bitter,"
said he. "But since we have fallen, and Rome will fall, who in turn may
hope to be Queen of the Waters?"

"That also I asked her," said Magro, "and gave her my Tyrian belt with
the golden buckle as a guerdon for her answer. But, indeed, it was too
high payment for the tale she told, which must be false if all else she
said was true. She would have it that in coining days it was her own
land, this fog-girt isle where painted savages can scarce row a wicker
coracle from point to point, which shall at last take the trident which
Carthage and Rome have dropped."