On our way back to the house we had to pass round a lava boulder on the lake side of the sluice shed, crossing by a little bridge the water channel that ran beneath it, near to a flight of landing steps that were used by fishermen. I examined this channel which pierced the sea wall and here, outside the sluice gate, was about twenty feet wide. At the side of it, built into the wall, was a slab of stone on which were marks, cut there, no doubt, to indicate the height of the water level and the rate at which it rose. I noticed that the topmost of these marks was already covered, and that during the little while I stood and watched, it vanished altogether, showing that the water was rising rapidly. Seeing that I was interested, Dramana remarked that the priests said that tradition never told of the water having reached that topmost mark before, even during the greatest rains. She added that she supposed it had done so now owing to the unprecedented wetness of the summer and great tempests farther up the river that fed the lake, of which we were experiencing the last. “It is fortunate that you have such a strong door to keep out the water,” I said. “Yes, Lord,” she answered, “since if it broke all this side of the island would be flooded. If you look you will see that already the lake stands higher than the cultivated lands and even than the mouth of the Cave of Heu-Heu. It is told in tradition that when first, hundreds of years ago, these lands were reclaimed from the mud of the lake and the wall was built to protect them, the priests of Heu-Heu trusted to the rain for their crops. Then came many dry seasons, and they cut a way through the wall and let in water to irrigate them, making the sluice gate that you have seen to keep it out if it rose too high. An old priest of that time said that this was madness and would one day prove their destruction, but they laughed at him and made the sluice. He was wrong also, since thenceforward their crops were doubled, and the gate is so well-fashioned that no floods, however great, have ever passed through or over it; nor can they do so, because the top of the stone gate rises to the height of a child above the level of the water wall which separates the lake from the reclaimed land.” “The lake might come over the crest of the wall,” I suggested. “No, Lord. If you look you will see that the wall is raised far above its level, to a height that no flood could ever reach.” “Then safety depends upon the gate, Dramana?”