"Listen," he cried, smiting a huge hairy hand upon his knee, "listen, and do or die. My magician tells me it is record-ed 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 seems to have been a jovial old fellow; but he did die, and, according to their custom, they floated him down the stream that flows to the regions of eternal ice, where doubtless he is at this present moment, caked up with ten million of his subjects. Now just go and find that sovereign for me, oh you bold-tongued dweller in other worlds!""And if I go how am I to know your ancient king, as you say, amongst ten million others?""That is easy enough," quoth Ar-hap lightly. "You have only to pass to and fro through the ice mountains, opening the mouths of the dead men and women you meet, and when you come to a middle-sized man with a fillet on his head and a jaw mended with gold, that will be he whom you look for. Bring me that fillet here within five minutes and the maid is yours."I started, and stared hard in amazement. Was this a dream? Was the royal savage in front playing with me? By what incredible chance had he hit upon the very errand Icould answer to best, the very trophy I had brought away from the grim valley of ice and death, and had still in my shoulder-bag? No, he was not playing; he was staring hard in turn, joying in my apparent confusion, and clearly thinking he had cornered me beyond hope of redemption.
"Surely your mightiness is not daunted by so ****** a task," scowled the sovereign, playing with the hilt of his huge hunting-knife, "and all amongst your friends' kindred too. On a hot day like this it ought to be a pleasant saunter for a spirit such as yourself.""Not daunted," I answered coldly, turning on my heels towards the door, "only marvelling that your majesty's skull and your necromancer's could not between them have de-vised a harder task."Out into the courtyard I went, with my heart beating finely in spite of my assumed indifference; got the bag from a peg in my sleeping-room, and was back before the log throne ere four minutes were gone.
"The old Hither king's compliments to your majesty," Isaid, bowing, while a deathly hush fell on all the assembly, "and he says though your ancestors little liked to hear his voice while alive, he says he has no objection to giving you some jaw now he is dead," and I threw down on the floor the golden circlet of the frozen king.
Ar-hap's eyes almost started from his head as, with his courtiers, he glared in silent amazement at that shining thing while the great drops of fear and perspiration trickled down his forehead. As for poor Heru, she rose like a spirit behind them, gazed at the jaw-bone of her mythical an-cestor, and then suddenly realising my errand was done and she apparently free, held out her hands, and, with a tremulous cry, would have come to me.
But Ar-hap was too quick for her. All the black savage blood swelled into his veins as he swept her away with one great arm, and then with his foot gave the luckless jaw a kick that sent it glittering and spinning through the far doorway out into the sunshine.
"Sit down," he roared, "you brazen wench, who are so eager to leave a king's side for a nameless vagrant's care!
