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 devised 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," I said, 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 ancestor, 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! And you, sir," turning to me, and fairly trembling with rage and dread, "I will not gainsay that you have done the errand set you, but it might this once be chance that got you that cursed token, some one happy turn of luck.

I will not yield my prize on one throw of the dice.

Another task you must do.
Once might be chance, but such chance comes not twice." "You swore to give me the maid this time." "And why should I keep my word to a half-proved spirit such as you ?" "There are some particularly good reasons why you should," I said, striking an attitude which I had once seen a music-hall dramatist take when he was going to blast somebody's future--a stick with a star on top of it in his hand and forty lines of blank verse in his mouth.
The king writhed, and begged me with a sign to desist.
"We have no wish to anger you.