The words fell on my ears like a physical blow. My new-born hope was dashed rudely to the ground. In a flash I saw all my ambition fail: all the perils and hardships I had undergone in coming to this amazing land were undergone in vain if I were debarred from making it known to the world; never should I reap the rewards and fame of a discovery beside which whatever of discoveries I had made before--I, who had given my life to the making of discoveries in little-known lands--would seem humdrum and small; never should I see my name on the title page of the greatest book of exploration ever printed. I think she must have also learned from the Prince what my life-work in the outer world had been, and that she was aware of the struggle going on within me. 'Listen, stranger,' she said, speaking with an intensity of earnestness and persuasion. 'From that far-off day when our Prince, in the life that was before, bade us keep our land secret from the world, never have we risked contamination with the outer peoples. Year after year, century after century, have we reverenced this command, and taught it to our children as soon as they were old enough to understand, so that it has become the first law of our existence. You, stranger, have learned how by the skill of our wise ones we know what passes in the world without. You have seen, too, something of our life, and how wide is the gulf, not yet to be bridged, between us and the outer world. Our Prince came to this valley at the first fleeing from the brutish intolerance of men. Has the world yet cleansed itself of that stain? Well we know that it has not. Well we know that were our existence known to the world, many are the things in this valley which the world would look upon with covetousness and lust: those glinting pebbles alone, which we give to our children to play with, would draw from the very ends of the earth its lowest and worst. Terribly do our people not less than our rulers fear that pollution. It must not be!' 'And if I swear the oath?' 'The Prince will contrive your flight. When you have gone, there will be great tumult in this valley--it may even be that the Prince's own life will be in danger. But he will quell that uprising. He will make known to our rulers and if need be to our people that the secret of this valley is safe with you for ever--he will pledge his own sacred word.' 'And if I refuse to swear?' 'Can the Prince set at naught the command which he, in his former coming, gave us? Can he imperil the existence of his own people? Without an oath of secrecy, by all you hold most sacred, the Prince will not, cannot, countenance your return to the world without. And should you try to escape by your own devices, even though we will it, we may be powerless to save you from swift destruction.'