“It is nothing,” whispered Evarra at my shoulder, “all this talk. Though you had the King’s Desire in your hand, yet you would stay if Persilope thought she wished it.” Then the yellow head of Mancha crinkled in the circle of the fire, his face under it grotesquely blocked with light, like some ancient mask, crying: “Signs—do we wait for Signs? Here is a Sign: first the woman comes, and then the man seeking her. Now, if they are not returned speedily to their own place who may not come looking for the two of them? And if, being kept, they escape by chance and go back talking of treasure——” “But a Sign!” cried Persilope, interrupting him. “Outliers, here is a Sign. These House-Folk have found us in a place where none of their kind so much as mark our trails. Within a day after being in our camp they have heard of the King’s Desire, and talked openly of it. This is a Sign that they are more favored by the Friends of the Soul of Man than any of their kind. Is it not a Sign?” We could see men rising to their feet here and there, and some cried out: “A Sign! A Sign!” And then other broken phrases, torn and trumpeted by the wind. Persilope took the bowl from Evarra, holding it out over the fire with a motion to extinguish the dying flame. “One has seen strangers coming, and strange things have come; shall we not wait upon her word?” he cried. I could make nothing of the confused murmur which ringed the hollow. Persilope must have read acquiescence in it, for he partially emptied the contents of the bowl upon the fire and then passed it to Mancha, Ward of the Outer Borders, to see what he would do. Mancha, smiling, handed the cup to Trastevera as a sign of unbroken confidence; she, as I guessed, so accepting it. That was the last I saw of her before Evarra hurried me away, holding high the bowl, slowly pouring the ceremonial water, silvered by the moon. IV THE MEET AT LEAPING WATER Within five days, during which it rained and cleared, a fine long growing rain that left the world new washed and shining, the Meet of the Outliers was moved to Leaping Water.