'He died at Babylon,' said Poyning, 'of a fever. This happened in the three hundred and twenty-third year before what we call the Christian era. Alexander of Macedon was never within a thousand miles of this valley.' The old man seemed more deeply moved than I had yet seen him. For a moment the statuesque reserve was gone, his face flushed, his eyes blazed, his usually suave gestures took on a sudden convulsive anger. Then the mask had fallen again, but when he spoke it was still with a stern conviction which proved beyond all doubt that whether we believed his words or not, Kalliboas profoundly believed them himself. 'It is a lie,' he said. 'It is the greatest delusion in the history of the world. Listen, strangers, and you shall know the truth, even as it is written on this stone. 'In the year of which you speak, Alexander of Macedon was returning from greater conquests than mankind had ever known, but it is not for the magnitude of his victories this man should be revered. He was more than conqueror. For years he had seen visions of a splendid future for the world, of a uniting of its forces, of a fusion of the peoples of the East whom he had conquered with the peoples of the West from whom he sprang, a union without which the races of this earth would ever remain in half-complete fruition. It was to the realisation of this ideal that he devoted his life and his mighty spirit. 'What came of his projects, perhaps even your historians know. Gradually, sorrowfully, our great founder saw that the world of his day was not ripe for his ideas; his own people regarded them as fond imaginings. They saw in him only the marvellous leader, the means to certain victory and boundless plunder for themselves. Disillusionment more and more bitter came upon him: the visions which had inspired his vast conquests fell away one by one as he understood they could not be carried into effect. Worse, his sympathy with the peoples of Asia led to jealousy, discontent, then plots among his own followers. Their love for him had waned, their faith given place to greedy ambition and lust. At his bidding ten thousand of his men took wives from among the women of the East, but to them it was still the light union of conqueror with slave chosen from the conquered race. His best friend among the generals of his army, Hephaistion, had died, leaving him almost alone in the midst of a swarm of traitors awaiting only the moment to revolt.