The 22 Letters by Richard; Clive; Kennedy King Page B

paths.”
    The east wind drove them on, and darkness came quickly. Soon the whole sky was aglitter with stars, and Nun craned his neck and stared as if he had never seen them before. “I shall never know all their names!” he sighed.
    â€œPatience!” said the stranger again. “If a man lived a thousand years and never slept by night, he would still leave many stars unnamed. Learn them by their groups first, their constellations. First of all tell your steersman to steer by that bright group that is now above the horizon. That you may call the Lesser Dog, and it will lead you west for a while until it sinks below the sea. Now look to the North. There is the Great Bear, who is always with us, and the Little Bear, in whose tail sits the North Star, the only one that stays still in the firmament. If you want to steer north at any time, that is your mark.”
    â€œWho wants to steer north?” Nun scoffed. “It’s a region of monsters and barbarians. But if I wish to steer west for Crete, I follow the Little Dog?”
    â€œAh, but only for the next hour. Then, you must look for the stars of the Hydra, the Virgin, and the Serpent as they come down to the horizon before you. And following them will be the Water-Bearer, the Fish, the Whale, and finally, the Giant Orion.”
    â€œI must remember all that?” Nun mused. “Hydra, Virgin, Serpent, Water-Carrier, Fish, Whale, and Giant? Follow them, and they will always lead me westward from Gebal to Crete?”
    â€œAye, but only at this time of year, in the Dog Days. See, to the South, the greenish eye of the Great Dog Star. The sun is between the houses of the Bull and the Heavenly Twins, so the Dog is above the horizon.”
    â€œWhat a busy life these heavenly creatures lead!” exclaimed Nun. “How shall I ever follow their comings and goings?”
    â€œWhat I have so far told you is simple,” said the astrologer. “You must also learn the sequence of the sun’s travel through the houses of the Zodiac, some of which I have mentioned, and others such as the Ram and the Crab, the Goat and the Lion, the Scales, the Scorpion, and the Archer. And you may wish to know the constellations of the North, the Lyre and the Swan, and of the South, such as the Ship which voyages over unknown seas well down on the southern horizon, as you can now see. These all contain the stars that are fixed.”
    â€œI am glad to hear it. They are always there to see, then?” asked Nun.
    â€œThey may rise and set like the sun,” said the other. “And their position in summer is different from their position in winter. But the case of the wandering planets is more difficult, though we can tell their paths among the other stars with reasonable certainty.”
    â€œThat must be a great comfort to you,” said Nun, unable to restrain his mockery. “But the only path I wish to know with certainty is that of my ship.”
    The Chaldean ignored the interruption, and continued: “But then there are the comets and meteors whose paths no man can foretell and whose significance puzzles our understanding. For the direction of a ship by night or of a line of march over the desert is nothing compared with advising a king in decisions of state, or reading the meanings of celestial conjunctions which may foretell events far distant in time and space. And it is for this that I have been sent with you to the most western point of the civilized world. Something is going to happen which concerns the House of the Bull, and as you must know, both Babylon and Crete are much concerned with the Bull. A little before dawn the constellation of the Bull will be in the heavens. That is one reason I wished to be at sea—there is often mist and cloud near land at that time.”
    â€œAn appointment with the Bull!” Nun exclaimed silently to himself. “So it is for that he wants to risk my ship!”
    But the Chaldean