Read "The Courts of the Morning" by John Buchan online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
In the Courts of the Morning there was still peace. The brooding heats, the dust-storms, the steaming deluges of the lowlands were unknown. The air was that of a tonic and gracious autumn slowly moving to the renewal of spring. The mornings were chilly, with a sea-fog crawling over the rim of the plateau; the days were bright and dry as old wine, the nights blue and starlit. There was peace in that diamond ether, but it was not the peace of lethargy but of ordered action. The place was as busy as ever, but it had no longer the air of a headquarters. It was now a base, a depot, and the poste de commandement was somewhere far below in the broken levels which spread dizzily towards the southern skyline.
The Gobernador had been given his choice. "I can take you with me," Sandy had said. "It won't be a comfortable life, but you don't mind that. Or you can stay here in the watchtower and follow our doings on the map."