Page:Lieut Gullivar Jones - His Vacation - Edwin Arnold (1905).djvu/257

 say, you will have the power also to go and come between the living and the dead, between the present and the past. Now I will set you an errand, and give you five minutes to do it in."

"Five minutes!" I exclaimed in incautious alarm.

"Five minutes," said the monarch savagely.

"And if in that time the errand is not done, I shall hold you to be an impostor, an impudent thief from some scoundrel tribe of this world of mine, and will make of you an example which shall keep men's ears tingling for a century or two."

Poor Heru dropped in a limp and lovely heap at that dire threat, while I am bound to say I felt somewhat uncomfortable, not unnaturally when all the circumstances are considered, but contented myself with remarking, with as much bravado as could be managed—

"And now to the errand, Ar-hap. What can I do for your majesty?"

The king consulted with the rogue at his elbow, and then nodding and chuckling in expectancy of his triumph, addressed me.

"Listen," he cried, smiting a huge hairy hand upon his knee—"listen, and do or die. My magician tells me it is recorded in his books that once, some five thousand years ago, when this land belonged to the Hither people, there lived here a king. It is a pity he died, for he