a clearing of the forest fringed at the foot by the white highway. In that clearing, as in a theatre, Simon saw a youth with his back to a tree engaged gallantly in steel-play against a group of dusky figures that came at him by rushes and fell off again before the steady sweep of his long sword. Simon's breath and senses came back to him like a trick. He saw that the man so vehemently attacked and so shamefully outnumbered was defending himself valiantly, and he thought better of bookworms from that instant. As he watched the craft of single man against many, the assailants gave ground, and one of their number fell to the earth like a log and lay there loggish. The man attacked had a breathing span, and waited watchful with his weapon poised. "Go to his aid," the wood-nymph whispered in Simon's ear, pointing to the man who was fighting for his life. Simon shook his head doggedly, thinking of the rules of his misanthropic game. He had made up his mind to dislike mankind and womankind, and it seemed a declination from principle to help any one in peril of a paltry life. "He would not thank me," he grumbled; "he is holding his own well enough." Even as he spoke, however, the conditions of the struggle were suddenly altered. Again the robbers had made to rush the youth, again they had retreated, and this time the youth, quitting the bastion of his tree-trunk, charged his retreating foes, who fled swiftly before him hither and thither. In making this attack he left at his rear, unheeding, the man who had fallen, and this one, suddenly quickening from his seeming lethargy, rose to his feet directly behind the advancing knight, and struck at close quarters a murderous blow at his head with what seemed to be a short club or mace. The youth gave a groan and reeled as he turned and tried to face this unexpected onslaught, and instantly all his enemies came swarming at him again. "Will you not help him?" Argathona cried, in fine scorn. "Then I will." A fallen tree-trunk lay in their way; the dryad leaped upon it just as the harassed youth, stumbling under a second treacherous blow, tripped and fell, and the robbers came swooping from all quarters upon their quarry to despatch him. Argathona flung up her arms. "Help me, help, ye forest powers," she cried, in a great voice that seemed to Simon to fill the four corners of the world.