“Alas! It is too late in the year for a heavy crop! But a peaceful journey to thee, reverend sir,” returned the man, civilly. Then Oman, resolutely putting away his fears, began, in haste: “Friend, I am seeking a far country:—a kingdom that lies on the edge of the hills, high in the sunlight, while below it are a broad plain and a great river. Canst thou tell me the name of such a place?” The man looked at him, first surprised, and then puzzled, but not asking a closer description. “A high kingdom,” he muttered, knitting his brow. Oman’s chance words had caught his imagination. “Ah! Perhaps—there is a plateau, lying five days’ journey to the west and south, that is called Mandu—” “Mandu! Mandu! It is the name! Churi said it! Tell me, stranger, tell me again! The place lies west and south? A plateau! Thou hast been there?” The farmer shook his head. “Nay, I am newly come from the north. But traders and mendicants have spoken of it. It is well known:—a Rajah’s land. South of it, below, is the Narmáda, the holy stream. Doubtless thou wouldst bathe there. But Mandu, I have been told, is to be reached from the mountains by a causeway. Yes, I have heard much of that place.” Oman’s face was alight, and he longed for money wherewith to repay the man for his information. The farmer, however, expected no such unusual thing as money out of a mendicant, and hoped for no more than a blessing from this one, which he got. Then Oman passed on, his face turned to the southwest. For five days, and more than five, he journeyed toward the sunset. He was all aflame with eagerness and delight; but he would ask his way no more. He had a strange notion that it would be a shame to him were he unable, now, to find the country of his heart’s desire; and he kept his eagerness within himself, never allowing himself to say to any one the words that burned on his lips: “I go south, to Mandu! To the plateau of Mandu!” though the pride in him was almost too great to be restrained.