The Iron
Crown

Night in these regions was dark, and the moon shunned her usual celestial exhibitionism. We plodded on, our eyes seeing only those charred and twisted roots which the tiny lamps caught in their swinging beams.

The women began to lag behind and in my anxiety I yielded to the men's pleas for a rest. Time was pressing and I felt that something was certainly about to happen.

But we rested and Wollis, who had been strangely quiet most of the time, entertained us with a song while we drank the dark water of a nearby trickling stream. He sang of his past wives in jocund style, to his own zither, but somehow in the dismal dark his song rang ill. Whether from his droning or from some noxious effect of the water, the whole company fell into a feverish and troubled half-sleep.

Being wary, I remained on watch, having failed completely to rouse any of the men. In the event the night passed without occurrence, untoward or otherwise.

The next morning the men seemed their usual selves, and though I myself was rather tired, we marched further that day than I had ever thought the company capable of. The men, too, seemed to have lost their old restlessness and the whole of the next week passed without any disputes or disagreements. Clearly the loss of Denis was a greater boon than I had bargained for.

Though these days were quiet, they saw a new stage of the expedition, for we were at last leaving the Plains of Prelenthos and our path now led through the elder-groves and cool clearings so typical of the Mafteti foothills.

The going was admittedly harder, but the men seemed to gain new strength from the change of air, and at last the meat which had been lacking in our diet could be supplied by the easily trappable Soft Pumas and smaller cats of the region.

But as the way got steeper our day's march diminished, though I still had high hopes that we should reach the pass before the rains began. But alas; we had come to a great circle of ruined houses in the steepest cleft before the pass when the skies opened, as they say, and we knew we should flee for shelter.

The ruins stood all about us and we made them our home for the whole of this season.

At first the furbishing of them to the King's standards occupied all our time, for the conversion of our equipment into roofs and windows taxed even the most inventive, but at length the days began to drag by like incapable leopards, the high spot of each being my going forth into the driving rain to pronounce in ringing tones that we should not proceed that day.