“I have application here, awaiting thy signet, that I may take the children away from the shiftless sloven who gave them ingress to light.” “Is she widowed?” “Yes; but she has been found guilty the third time.” “The application is denied for the present. Alcamayn will be guardian of streets in our absence. Upon returning, I shall lend mine ear to domestic affairs. Of late disturbances and complaints have been frequent from that quarter.” Touchy, vain-glorious Setos nettled at this. “Do my fellows think me unmindful of duty?” “No; only over-zealous. It is not in the province of good government to meddle with private affairs. The best interests of posterity and the economic use of sustenance, with care of the person, are all that can be demanded.” “Akaza is competent to advise thee,” interposed Orondo. “These matters properly come under his dominion.” “Akaza will undoubtedly agree with me,” said Setos, catching at a straw for justification. “The first evidence of initiation is a sensitive condition of the organs of smell. The novitiate is required to discover the deadly effects of putrescent gases, and even children are taught that whatever offends the nostrils injures the body.” They rose simultaneously, and Orondo opened the door leading into the public reception hall. “The runners are here, waiting to carry our greetings to the Monbas and their high priestess.” “Go and dispatch them, Orondo. I trust thee to lay the lash on them lightly. Go, thou, also, Setos, to see that they get the regulation stripes before setting forth.” The Dorado picked up the parchments signed and sealed earlier in the day, and locking them in a strong box of curious design, dismissed the two courtiers with a nod and a smile. “I pray thee return quickly. Alcamayn needs advice from thee respecting thy special departments of service.” CHAPTER FIVE THE TEMPLE OF LOVE IN THE LAND OF FIRE The watchers on the top of Mount Diablo looked anxiously for sunrise the morning Yermah and his followers rowed slowly across San Francisco Bay, hugging the shorelines until the mouth of the Sacramento River was reached. Four times in the year the early visitor to Mount Diablo sees the “Shadow of the Devil” cast a triangular outline against its grizzled peak. The contacts last but a second and fade like a breath of mist from a looking-glass. All of the cluster of piny hills which surrounds Diablo like brilliants around a stone of the first water are still in darkness, and the two large valleys at either side seem an indistinct blur, when the heavy, phantom-like shadow is thrown on the scene, slantingly, clear, and sudden. On the right side of the mountain, the light nearest the black line that accentuates the shadow is palest yellow, shading gradually into green, until it is lost in the yellow-brown of the hills. To the left the line is reddish, and the shadow blue-black.