Kyzicks—yellow coins the size of a gold dollar and worth five times as much—rolled, everywhere about the road, diverging from a heap that lay revealed by the collapsed walls of the building. Flinging forward, I went to my knees and began plunging my hands into the pile. I believe that just then I was as daft as Gilhooly himself. In those days the glimmer of gold always had a demoralizing effect on me. As I raked my outspread fingers through the yellow pile I brought up a round, jet-black stone the size of my fist. I regarded it as a bit of chaff in the bin of wealth and hurled it from me down the road. With a loud yell, Gilhooly leaped after it. Then I became aware of a weird and inexplicable feeling that laid itself like an axe at the root of my professional instinct. What right had I to all this treasure? It belonged to the king of Baigall; he was an unworthy creature, perhaps, but still it belonged to him. What had I been about to do? My heart sickened and I sprang up, spurned the kyzicks with my heel and turned my back. That was my awakening. In one instant the iron of repentance had pierced my soul. The past rolled its turgid waters in front of me. I shivered and drew back from that wave of evil, covering my eyes to blot it from my sight. How should I atone for the days that had been? Could I do it by an unflinching rectitude in the days there were to be? Conscience was belaboring me with telling blows. I had not been on intimate terms with my conscience for many years, and to have it thus suddenly overmaster me and drive me into reformation was a mystery beyond my power to explain. While I stood there consumed with regret and hoping against hope for the future, a voice hailed me from down the road. "Did you say your name was Munn?" Could that calm, contained voice have come from Emmet Gilhooly? I looked in his direction and found him leaning against a jutting spur of rocks, his right hand clutching convulsively the black stone I had flung from me. The crazed light had vanished from his eyes. An expression of wonder was on his face, but it was a rational wonder developed by an awakening as abrupt and complete as mine had been. "You have it right, Mr. Gilhooly," I answered, the extreme mildness of my voice surprising me. "My full name is James Peter Munn and——" "You are the thief who just came into the castle and relieved myself and my friends of their valuables?" Gilhooly’s normal condition had come back to him at the point where it had been dropped. I was not slow in reasoning how this might be. "I was a thief in the letter and spirit less than ten minutes back," I humbly answered, "but now, sir, I have turned a leaf. I promise you that the rest of the book shall read better than what has gone before." Gilhooly passed his left hand across his forehead. "Where—where am I?" he faltered. "In the kingdom of Baigadd," I returned, "some distance out of the royal city."