The two plotters at Damascus and the Princess of Dardania would have been equally surprised to learn that they had credited Cyril with a greater degree of caution than he possessed. No letter had passed from him to Queen Ernestine, and it was not with the idea of concealing his true destination that he approached Palestine from the south. Two motives, the existence of which was scarcely confessed even to himself, he allowed to sway him. One was the determination to do his duty to the utmost before gratifying his personal wishes, which sprang rather from pride in his own self-mastery than from any ascetic notion of self-denial, but the other was a dread lest his humiliation should after all be in vain. Ernestine might spurn him as he had once spurned her. Cyril did not care to contemplate this possibility, but the mere thought made him willing to defer the time when it might become a fact. Attended by his three inseparable followers, he pursued his journey without hurry, and also without undue delay, halting here and there to meet the heads of a Jewish community, and explain the significance of the new state of affairs. Encouragement was little needed at this juncture, except in the case of those Jews who had hitherto regarded the Zionist movement with suspicion or dislike. All the rest appeared to have taken a step forward--the step from bondage to freedom, from despair to hope--and many were already preparing their possessions for the journey to Palestine, awaiting only the summons to start.