'So. Now we ourselves know the original Hellas, which is many thousands of miles from this country. How did your people come here?' 'Have no fear, the time is not distant when you shall learn of our origin. But tell me, how did yourselves come to this country? Was it by design or did you stumble upon us?' I am tolerably sure Kalliboas was already in possession of all the facts about this, and that he merely wanted to hear our version of it. Yet he started and bowed his head realistically enough when Poyning mentioned Philipson. 'Our comrade,' said the former, 'came of a set purpose. He had discovered evidence that somewhere in this region lay a valley inhabited by an unknown people. He determined to search for that valley. Together with us and the two native servants who are now dead he set out across the mountains.' 'What guided you here?' demanded Kalliboas. 'A monument in the mountains, on which was a record of this land. The writing had been made by a priest who penetrated into the valley but retreated at once into the heights, where he perished. We found the monument again, and from there struck across the mountains until we were carried down into this valley by the snow.' The mention of the _obo_ had put the old man into a perturbation which even his mask-like reserve couldn't altogether hide. 'Do others of the outer world know of this monument?' he said with a curiously grim inflection. 'We do not know. When our comrade found it on his former coming he copied the inscription and then effaced it, so that probably only we know what was written.' 'How, then, did they obtain their knowledge, those other men?' 'What other men?' 'They from whom you fled when you came hither.' Kalliboas may, of course, have learned of this matter from Philipson. On the other hand, he may not. 'I cannot tell,' said Poyning, staring at the old man. 'But in some way they had come to suspect the existence of this valley, and believed our comrade had more exact knowledge. They strove to steal his secret. But tell me, Kalliboas, are we the first men from the outer world whom you have seen?' The old man shook his head. 'There was one before,' he said. 'What manner of man was he?' cried Poyning with a curious eagerness. 'He was tall, and of a fair skin like yourselves.' 'Then he was _not_ the native priest who made the inscription?' 'He whom we knew was no priest.' 'Whom you _knew_? Then he too has departed again?' 'On a long journey. He died in this land.' 'He is buried here?' 'We judged him to have been a man of standing in his own country, and our rulers decreed that his tomb should be of a fitting splendour.' 'Where is it?' 'It stands on the foothills southward of the valley.' 'When did this stranger come?' 'Some years gone--ten, eleven years.' 'How long had he been here when he died?' 'But a few months.' 'How did he die?'