Often before she had asked such a question; but never with quite the same eagerness. On the former occasions I had replied briefly, with a vagueness half forced upon me by my poor knowledge of the language; but now I saw that I must answer in detail. It would not do to state, as previously, that I came from a land beyond the wide waters, where the cities were high as hills and the people many as flies in autumn; and it would not suffice to explain that I had passed my days in acquiring dark knowledge, knowledge of the rocks and of things that had happened on earth before man came. From her earnest, almost vehement manner, it was clear that Yasma would not be put off with generalities, but wished to know of intimate and personal things. Picking my way cautiously, I answered as well as I knew how. I told of my boyhood in New England; of how I had wandered among the stony hills, interested even then in the rocks; of how my father and mother had sent me to a great university, where I had studied the earth's unwritten story; of how I had been a teacher in that same university, and later a member of the scientific staff of a famous museum, by which I had been sent on expeditions into the far places of the world. These and similar facts I reported to the best of my ability, finding it difficult if not impossible to express my meaning in the simple Pushtu vocabulary. But while Yasma listened as well as she was able, she did not appear satisfied. I might almost say she did not even appear interested, for often her face expressed a total lack of comprehension. It may have been after ten or fifteen minutes that she broke in impatiently, "That's all very well, what you are saying--all very well. But you are not telling me about yourself--this might all be true of a thousand men. What is there that's true only of you? What are you like deep down? What do you think? What do you feel? Oh, I know you cannot explain outright--but do say something to show what you are like!" "You put a hard question," I objected, just a little embarrassed. "I simply don't know how to answer." And then, as a pleasant means of shifting the burden, I suggested, "But maybe you'll show me how, Yasma. Maybe you'll show me by telling something about yourself." "Do you really want to know?" "There is nothing that interests me more." "Very well," she assented, after an instant's hesitation. "I will tell you from the beginning." And, with a reflective smile, she related, "I was born here in the Valley of Sobul, seventeen summers ago. I have two brothers and three sisters--but I won't say anything about them, because you're going to meet them some day. When I was born, a strange prophecy was made by the soothsayer, Hamul-Kammesh"--here she paused, and the trace of a frown came over her face--"but I won't say anything about that, either."