“I was fed up there,” I said.

“And what about your poor parents?” cried the captain virtuously. “They might pay to get you back?” he suggested.

“I’ve none.”

“No guardian?”

I thought briefly of the General, my legal guardian, in whose care my mother placed me. “No guardian.”

I looked round me. “What is this place,” I asked.

The captain began with hoarse pride to recite the full name of his ship, foreign and full of ceremoniously-guttural words, but I said, “No, I mean the name of this town.”

“Thought you said you meant to come here?” stared the captain.

“No, I didn’t.”

“This is the Superlativity’s Temple-town,” said the tall man.

At that I recognized him as the Priest Kaselm. Now I was not so sure that he could possibly recognize me, he’d hardly noticed me and I’d been a boy then. Why had his face suggested a pleasant memory? Gods know, it had been a terrible

occasion, neither had I thought at the time that his keen shrewd gaze had struck me as at all likeable.

“I need lodging and food and I’ve no money,” I said. “Can you tell me an inn that needs a girl?”

“Several, but not your sort,” interpolated the captain chuckling.

“No,” said the Priest.

I was taken aback by such a flat denial. “I’ve no right to ask, but can’t you advise me?”

“Come with me.”

Without giving myself time to catch my breath at his abrupt decision, I followed him—I had to, he was already on the gangplank. He was my only hope at the moment, and this morning I had made myself a motto I meant to keep like a rule—“All or nothing; you can expect to obtain nothing without demand or risk.”

I have already lived long enough in the Outside to know that I have led a far more adventurous life since I left the tower of my childhood than most people ever do. And when I was little I thought that everyone in the World lived lives of incredible interest! So they do, compared to my early life—but fate is making up to me for that now. I felt very confident as behind the Priest Kaselm I threaded my way through the crowd up the wharf-steps. I will go on making my way through adventures.