The adventures of a Viking bad been written
many times before; the history of a Greek galley-slave was no new thing, and
though I wrote both, who could challenge or confirm the accuracy of my
details? I might as well tell a tale of two thousand years hence. The Lords of
Life and Death were as cunning as Grish Chunder had hinted. They would allow
nothing to escape that might trouble or make easy the minds of men. Though I
was convinced of this, yet I could not leave the tale alone. Exaltation
followed reaction, not once, but twenty times in the next few weeks. My moods
varied with the March sunlight and flying clouds. By night or in the beauty of
a spring morning I perceived that I could write that tale and shift continents
thereby. In the wet, windy afternoons, I saw that the tale might indeed be
written, but would be nothing more than a faked, false-varnished, sham-rusted
piece of Wardour Street work at the end. Then I blessed Charlie in many ways--
though it was no fault of his. He seemed to be busy with prize competitions,
and I saw less and less of him as the weeks went by and the earth cracked and
grew ripe to spring, and the buds swelled in their sheaths. He did not care to
read or talk of what he had read, and there was a new ring of self-assertion
in his voice.
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