If man is incapable of estimating the full degree of a visitation of evil, so also is he equally at fault in appreciating his present advantages, until he be suddenly deprived of them. So it fell in this matter of Hiridia's removal, whose unhappy consequences to myself only emerged gradually after the event. Until a few weeks ago I could never have believed that Hiridia's companionship had been of such vital help to me or had so sweetened my royal existence. I had been accustomed to regard my erstwhile tutor rather as a favoured page whom it amused me to confide in, to mystify, to scold, or to twit as might suit my passing whim. That I should have deeply regretted his departure I was quite ready to admit; but I never anticipated the serious nature of my loss till that loss was effected. A veritable portion of myself seemed to have been lopped away by this devilish scheme; whilst the haunting thought that the poor boy--for I made scant allowance for his thirty years now fulfilled--was almost certainly sobbing out his faithful and affectionate heart in a hateful prison, only served to fan the flame of my torment. Yet I was helpless and powerless, and could only await the approach of the solstice, when the expected bath in the Fountain of Rejuvenation might possibly brace my brain for some successful plan of action. III Happily this ceremony was not many weeks distant, and its approach afforded me some objective, however uncertain and inadequate, for fixing my hopes in the future. The lassitude too that usually preceded this half-yearly reinvigorating process had appeared rather earlier than its wont, so that the physical weariness and languor were already rendering my brain less active and thereby indirectly supplying me with some measure of relief from my tense anxiety. I continued to perform my daily duties in the judgment halls of the city, but otherwise I ceased to leave the palace during this time of ineffable loneliness and humiliation. To fill Hiridia's vacant place of chamberlain I nominated Zulàr, and likewise selected another equerry. With my daily routine thus proceeding outwardly much as usual, I relied on my being left in peace throughout the intervening weeks before the coming of the solstice. But herein I was grievously mistaken in supposing that the machinations of my enemies had been even temporarily suspended, as the following incident can testify.