And in due course he became king by right of his
wife, and founded the present Zu-Vendi dynasty, which is to this
day called the 'House of the Stairway', thus proving once more
how energy and talent are the natural stepping-stones to grandeur.
And to commemorate his triumph he fashioned a statue of himself
dreaming, and of the fair woman who touched him on the forehead,
and placed it in the great hall of the palace, and there it stands
to this day.
Such was the great stair of Milosis, and such the city beyond.
No wonder they named it the 'Frowning City', for certainly those
mighty works in solid granite did seem to frown down upon our
littleness in their sombre splendour. This was so even in the
sunshine, but when the storm-clouds gathered on her imperial
brow Milosis looked more like a supernatural dwelling-place,
or some imagining of a poet's brain, than what she is --
a mortal city, carven by the patient genius of generations out
of the red silence of the mountain side.
CHAPTER XII
THE SISTER QUEENS
The big rowing-boat glided on up the cutting that ran almost
to the foot of the vast stairway, and then halted at a flight
of steps leading to the landing-place. Here the old gentleman
disembarked, and invited us to do so likewise, which, having
no alternative, and being nearly starved, we did without hesitation
-- taking our rifles with us, however.
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