Now Cyrus, in his knowledge of geography, was about like the rest of us. He had learned it, but details were not fresh in his mind. The two great islands off to his right he guessed were Corsica and Sardinia. Over Northern Italy he sped, where local showers were hiding, for a time, the land beneath. One city on the western coast, with its countless canals, was unmistakably Venice. On he sped across the upper end of the Adriatic--the narrow part. Here, as he approached the eastern shore, guidance forsook him. He slowed his machine, then stopped. Thus far his intuition, whether right or wrong, had led him without wavering. Now, and suddenly, all guidance ceased--his intuition vanished. A sudden need, he felt, for knowledge he did not possess. A sense of helplessness came upon him, intensified, perhaps, by the reaction from his previous confidence. In fear of straying from his course he decided to alight. If fortune favored him the voice might come again, and he could start afresh. So he descended, slowly, toward the summit of a towering hill whose western sides were steep and thickly wooded. He landed in a cypress grove, beside a garden. [Illustration] XV A GARDEN OF WONDERS When Cyrus stepped out of his machine he stood for a moment unsteady on his legs; a usual condition in a sudden change of air after hours of bewildering speed. So far as he could judge he was in the grounds of an institution of some kind--a monastery, a college, a convent, or possibly a summer palace. Along the side of the garden overlooking the sea, which lay far below, ran a wall. On this wall at regular spaces stood statues of ecclesiastical persons, presumably Saints. They stood back to the sea, facing the garden. In the garden a fountain played. Off beyond the garden he saw long, white buildings, and a chapel. But what most impressed him was the beauty of a line of cloisters, their many arches of white marble, softened by age, now all aglow in the light of the western sun. But his wandering, enchanted eyes fell upon another sight, different in character, yet fully as interesting. But in a different way. So interesting that he forgot, for a moment, the garden, the fountain, the cloisters and the Saints. The sight that gently stirred him was the figure of a girl; a graceful figure that seemed a fitting climax to this garden in fairy land. She was leaning against the parapet, her face toward the sun, now sinking in the West. She seemed in deepest meditation. Her dress, a light gray, with white bands at the neck and shoulders, suggested a religious order. So he decided that his guess at having landed in a convent might be correct. He was not familiar with convents. The inmates, so far as he knew, might be a mingling of religious fanatics and female criminals partially reformed. He felt sure, however, up to the present moment, that they were wide and square in build, plain of face and haters of men. Hence