To the left is the sea, and behind the hill runs the canal and road by which all traffic comes or goes to Ar-hap.

But above all things pass not to the hills right, for no man goes there; there away the forests are thick as night, and in their perpetual shadows are the ruins of a Hither city, a haunted fairy town to which some travellers have been, but whence none ever returned alive." "By the great Jove, that sounds promising! I would like to see that town if my errand were not so urgent." But the old fellow shook his shaggy head and turned a shade yellower.
"It is no place for decent folk," he growled.

"I myself once passed within a mile of its outskirts at dusk, and saw the unholy little people's lanterned processions starting for the shrine of Queen Yang, who, tradition says, killed herself and a thousand babies with her when we took this land." "My word, that was a holocaust! Couldn't I drop in there to lunch?
It would make a fine paper for an antiquarian society." Again the woodman frowned.

"Do as I bid you, son.

You are too young and green to go on ventures by yourself.