Page:Lieut Gullivar Jones - His Vacation - Edwin Arnold (1905).djvu/262

 my efforts to its ends, could have moved that hairy barbarian to play a second time into my hands like this, to choose from the endless records of his world the second of the two incidents I had touched in hasty travel through it? I was almost overcome for a minute; then, pulling myself together, strode forward fiercely, and, speaking so that all could hear me, cried, "Base king, who neither knows the capacities of a spirit nor has learned as yet to dread its anger, see! your commission is executed in a thought, just as your punishment might be. Heru, come here." And when the girl, speechless with amazement, had risen and slipped over to me, I straightened her pretty hair from her forehead, and then, in a way which would make my fortune if I could repeat it at a conjuror's table, whipped poor Yang's gemmy crown from my pocket, flashed its baleful splendour in the eyes of the courtiers, and placed it on the tresses of the first royal lady who had worn it since its rightful owner died a hundred years before.

A heavy silence fell on the hall as I finished, and nothing was heard for a time save Heru sobbing on my breast and a thirsty baby somewhere outside calling to its mother for the water that was not to be had. But presently on those sounds came the fall of anxious feet, and a messenger, entering the doorway, approached the throne, laid himself out flat twice, after which