When the song ceased we suddenly all
awoke, and another took the helm, and the helmsman slept.
We knew that soon we should come to Mandaroon. We made a meal, and
Mandaroon appeared. Then the captain commanded, and the sailors loosed
again the greater sails, and the ship turned and left the stream of
Yann and came into a harbour beneath the ruddy walls of Mandaroon.
Then while the sailors went and gathered fruits I came alone to the
gate of Mandaroon. A few huts were outside it, in which lived the
guard. A sentinel with a long white beard was standing in the gate,
armed with a rusty pike. He wore large spectacles, which were covered
with dust. Through the gate I saw the city. A deathly stillness was
over all of it. The ways seemed untrodden, and moss was thick on
doorsteps; in the market-place huddled figures lay asleep. A scent of
incense and burned poppies, and there was a hum of the echoes of
distant bells. I said to the sentinel in the tongue of the region of
Yann, "Why are they all asleep in this still city?"
He answered: "None may ask questions in this gate for fear they wake
the people of the city. For when the people of this city wake the gods
will die. And when the gods die men may dream no more." And I began to
ask him what gods that city worshipped, but he lifted his pike because
none might ask questions there. So I left him and went back to the
_Bird of the River_.
Certainly Mandaroon was beautiful with her white pinnacles peering
over her ruddy walls and the green of her copper roofs.
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