"Listen, Prince.

The lady Noma is the only child of my blood-brother, my friend, with whom I was brought up, he who was slain at my side in the great war with the tribes of the north.

She was my ward: she was more; for through her--ah! you know not how--I held my converse with the things of earth and air, the very spirits that watch us now in this darkness, Hafela.

Thus it happened, that before ever she was a woman, her mind grew greater than the mind of any other woman, and her thought became my thought, and my thought became her thought, for I and no other am her master.

Still I waited to wed her till she was fully grown; and while I waited I went upon an embassy to the northern tribes.