'Hospitality!' he cried, swinging round and pointing towards the south. 'In ancient time it was a sacred duty to your people: _there_ is how you practise it to-day! Truly, you have improved upon the old custom of your race! A stranger came into the valley, as it has been written, seeking rest from the weariness of his travel. You gave him rest--the rest from which there is no awakening. But it happens that after many years the stranger's son has come into this valley, seeking him. To the stranger's son you lie, without seeming to lie. No man, say you, was near the stranger when he died--truly said, for you of your great wisdom can slay without poison or steel. But it may be that the son shall see the body of his father and learn the manner of his death--therefore you hide your crime. Indeed you are a righteous people, that the discovery of murder is so repellent to you! Justly you shun contact with the outer world and its misdeeds--' 'Silence!' thundered Kalliboas. 'Silence, or it were better for you never to have been born! Here shall you remain, not setting foot over the threshold, while it is decided what shall become of you. Strive not to flee--as well strive to escape from the bowels of yonder mountains! You have defied the Nine, and the Nine shall settle your fate!' With that he was gone, leaving on my mind, at least, a very distinct impression that the end would not be long coming. Poyning threw himself on to a couch, where he sat a long while in silence, his head buried in his hands. When he looked up, all the fury of passion was gone out of his face, and a deep-lined sorrow had taken its place. 'It's my doing, Mirlees!' he groaned. 'I have dragged you into this. Forgive me!' 'There's nothing for me to forgive you about,' I said. 'I came into the business with my eyes wide open. Had I known as much as I do now, I should have joined you more readily still.' 'It's decent of you to say that,' he replied, 'even if it isn't all true. But there's a good deal you don't know. Nor could I tell you before, for it was a matter I talked about to nobody--it concerned my father's honour.' 'That _is_ a point I'm still in the dark upon,' I observed. Poyning sat twisting and untwisting his hands. 'It's an old story,' he said at last, 'and till now it has been a mysterious one even to me. You remember, back in China--my God, it seems ages ago!--I told you and Philipson I'd an ambition to explore these wildernesses. Neither of you pressed me for my exact motive, and I should not have told you if you had. But I had a very particular reason indeed.' He paused, with a twitching of the lips, but after a while seemed to regain his grip, and continued in a steady voice.