their fleecy flocks, who built Thraa, Ilarnek, and Kadatheron on the

winding river Ai. And certain tribes, more hardy than the rest, pushed on

to the border of the lake and built Sarnath at a spot where precious

metals were found in the earth.

Not far from the gray city of lb did the wandering tribes lay the first

stones of Sarnath, and at the beings of lb they marveled greatly. But with

their marveling was mixed hate, for they thought it not meet that beings

of such aspect should walk about the world of men at dusk. Nor did they

like the strange sculptures upon the gray monoliths of Ib, for why those

sculptures lingered so late in the world, even until the coming men, none

can tell; unless it was because the land of Mnar is very still, and remote

from most other lands, both of waking and of dream.

As the men of Sarnath beheld more of the beings of lb their hate grew, and

it was not less because they found the beings weak, and soft as jelly to

the touch of stones and arrows. So one day the young warriors, the

slingers and the spearmen and the bowmen, marched against lb and slew all

the inhabitants thereof, pushing the queer bodies into the lake with long

spears, because they did not wish to touch them. And because they did not

like the gray sculptured monoliths of lb they cast these also into the

lake; wondering from the greatness of the labor how ever the stones were

brought from afar, as they must have been, since there is naught like them

in the land of Mnar or in the lands adjacent.