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As far as the village of Kalepa, there is a carriage road; afterward, only a stony path. From the spinal ridge of the promontory, which we crossed, we overlooked all the plain of Khania, and beyond the Dictynnæan peninsula, to the western extremity of Crete.
After a few words to me about our journey, the Khania turned to Leo and talked to him for the rest of the evening, while I devoted myself to the old Shaman Simbri.
"At any rate, Leo, why should she not still be sufficiently under its influence to cause her, without any fault or seeking of her own, to fall madly in love at first sight with a man whom, after all, she has always loved?" "The argument seems sound enough, Horace, and if so I am sorry for the Khania, who hasn't much choice in the matter been forced into it, so to speak."
Of the end of that scene I know nothing, for although I fought hard against it, oblivion mastered me. After this I became aware that the regal-looking woman called Khania, was always in the room, and that she seemed to be nursing Leo with great care and tenderness. Sometimes even she nursed me when Leo did not need attention, and she had nothing else to do, or so her manner seemed to suggest.
"Of this be sure, my guests, that never while I live shall you be allowed to cross the river which borders the slopes of yonder peak." "Why not, Khania?" "Because, my lord Leo that is your name, is it not? such is my will, and while I rule here my will is law. Come, let us turn homewards." That night we did not eat in the great hall, but in the room which adjoined our bed-chambers.
But she mastered the animal with her whip and voice, and called out "Who is this draped hag of the Mountain that stops the path of the Khania Atene and her dead lord? My guests, I find you in ill company, for it seems that you are conducted by an evil spirit to meet an evil fate.
"You were borne hither in your sleep, and see, the change has bettered you. Do you remember nothing?" "Nothing, nothing at all," I answered earnestly. "But what of my friend?" "He also is better. The Khania Atene nurses him." "Atene?" I said. "That is an old Egyptian name. It means the Disk of the Sun, and a woman who bore it thousands of years ago was famous for her beauty."
Behind us were the Khania with her surging, doom-driven passions and her stormy loveliness, the wizardries of her horny-eyed mentor, so old in years and secret sin, and the madness of that strange being, half-devil, half-martyr, at once cruel and a coward the Khan, her husband, and his polluted court. In front lay the fire, the snow and the mystery they hid, sought for so many empty years.
At the head of it rode none other than the beautiful Khania, followed by her great-uncle, the old Shaman, and after these came a company of shaven priests in their white robes, bearing between them a bier, upon which, its face uncovered, lay the body of the Khan, draped in a black garment.
What if Amenartas and this Khania, this woman with royalty stamped on every feature, should be the same? Would not that "magic of my own people that I have" of which she wrote upon the Sherd, enable her to pierce the darkness of the Past and recognize the priest whom she had bewitched to love her, snatching him out of the very hand of the goddess?
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