Page:Tudor Jenks--Imaginotions.djvu/223

Rh spout—he made a rude wick from a piece of twisted linen rag—and lighted it.

The lamp gave a dim and flickering light.

"I wish I could see it in the dark," I said, after a minute. "All right," he said; "just take it into that store-room," and he pointed to one of the doors, "shut the door, and you will find it as dark as Egypt."

I took the lamp, shielded it from the air with my hand, went into the store-room, and shut the door. It certainly was very dark in there, and the lamp gave hardly any light. As I sat in the gloom, I began to wish that I had lived in the days of the ancients. I thought to myself how wonderful it would be if I could be transported back into the ages before any of the marvelous inventions of our day were known. How much I could tell them!

"I wish," I said to myself, "that I could live in those times for a little while."

As I spoke I was gently rubbing the edge of the lamp.

A blue flame sprang up from the wick, there was a muffled explosion, and the room seemed filled with a violet vapor. Then a voice seemed to come from the wreaths of vapor, and it said:

"Master of the lamp, I am here. You shall at once be obeyed."

Before I could answer, the door opened, the vapor cleared away, and, half dazed, I walked out into the light.

For a few moments I could not make out any of the objects around me. Gradually my sight cleared, and I saw that I was out in the open air and standing upon high ground overlooking a wooded valley through which wound a river. As I looked down wonderingly, I heard a rustling behind me at some distance. I turned, and saw a gigantic elk coming toward me, brandishing a pair of horns that seemed ten feet wide from tip to tip.

Then I knew that my wish had been granted, for I remembered