“I must be a devil and a half,” he told himself, and very nearly laughed aloud at the idea. She mistook the sudden humor in his eyes for admiration of herself, being used to that from men. “Listen, while I tell you all from the beginning! The sirkar sent me to discover what may be this 'Heart of the Hills' men talk about. I found these caves--and this! I told the sirkar a little about the Caves, and nothing at all about the Sleepers. But even at that they only believed the third of what I said. And I--back in Delhi I bought books--borrowed books--sent to Europe for more books--and hired babu Sita Ram to read them to me, until his tongue grew dry and swollen and he used to fall asleep in a corner. I know all about Rome! Days I spent--weeks!--months!--listening to the history of their great Caesar, and their little Caesars--of their conquests and their games! It was good, and I understood it all! Rome should have been true to the old gods, and they would have been true to her! She fell when she fooled with Christianity!” She was speaking dreamily now, with her chin resting on a hand and an elbow on the ivory arm of the throne, remembering as she told her story. And it meant so much to her, she was so in earnest, that her voice conjured up pictures for King to see. “When I had read enough I came back here to think. I knew enough now to be sure that the Sleeper is a Roman, and the 'Heart of the Hills' a Grecian maid. She is like me. That is why I know she drove him to make an empire, choosing for a beginning these 'Hills' where Rome had never penetrated. He found her in Greece. He plunged through Persia to build a throne for her! I have seen it all in dreams, and again in the crystal! And because I was all alone, I saw that I would need all the skill I could learn, and much patience. So I began to learn to dance as she danced, using those pictures of her as a model. I have surpassed her! I can dance better than she ever did! “Between times I would go to Delhi and dance there a little, and a little in other places--once indeed before a viceroy, and once for the king of England--and all men--the king, too!--told me that none in the world can dance as I can! And all the while I kept looking for the man--the man who should be like the Sleeper, even as I am like her whom he loved! “Many a man--many and many a man I have tried and found wanting! For I was impatient in spite of resolutions. I burned to find him at once, and begin! But you are the first of all the men I have tested who answered all the tests! Languages--he must speak the native tongues. Brave be must be--and clever--resembling the Sleeper in appearance. I began to think long ago that I must forego that last test, for there was none like the Sleeper until you came. And when this world war broke--for it is a world war, a world war I tell you!--I thought at last that I must manage all alone. And then you came!