Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/24

10 one by a lot of stone steps. She had a slave-person who went around behind her with a peacock-feathery fan, all green and gold and beautiful; and he waved the fan over her to keep her cool. Meanwhile, the king would be coming in at one of the gates of the city. They were huge, enormous brass gates, and they shone like the sun, bright, and the sun winked on the king's golden chariot, too, and on the soldiers' spears.

"He was just coming home from a lion-hunt, and was very much pleased because he'd killed a lot of lions. He was really a rather horrid man,—quite ferocious, and all,—but he wore most wonderful purple and red embroidered clothes, the sort you like to hear about. He had a tiara on, and golden crescents and rosettes blazed all over him, and he wore a mystic, sacred ornament on his chest, round and covered all over with queer emblems. He rode past the temple, where the walls were painted in different colors, one for each of the planets and such, because the Babylonish people worshipped those—orange for Jupiter, and blue for Mercury, and silver for the moon. And the king got out of his chariot and climbed up to where