That may tell us something." And slipping my arm round the waist of the first disengaged girl--we were not then, mind you, in Atlantic City--I kissed her dimpling cheek unreproached, and gaily followed in the drift of humanity, trending with a low hum of pleasure towards the great white terraces under the palace porch.
How well I knew them! It was just such an evening Heru had consulted Fate in the same place once before; how much had happened since then! But there was little time or inclination to think of those things now.
The whole phantom city's population had drifted to one common centre.
The crumbling seaward ramparts were all deserted; no soldier watch was kept to note if angry woodmen came from over seas; a soft wind blew in from off the brine, but told no tales; the streets were empty, and, when as we waited far away in the southern sky the earth planet presently got up, by its light Heru, herself again, came tripping down the steps to read her fate.
They had placed another magic globe under a shroud on a tripod for her.
It stood within the charmed circle upon the terrace, and I was close by, although the princess did not see me.
Again that weird, fantastic dance commenced, the princess working herself up from the drowsiest undulations to a hurricane of emotion.
Then she stopped close by the orb, and seized the corner of the web covering it.

We saw the globe begin to beam with veiled magnificence at her touch.
Not an eye wavered, not a thought wandered from her in all that silent multitude.

It was a moment of the keenest suspense, and just when it was at its height there came a strange sound of hurrying feet behind the outermost crowd, a murmur such as a great pack of wolves might make rushing through snow, while a soft long wail went up from the darkness.
Whether Heru understood it or not I cannot say, but she hesitated a moment, then swept the cloth from the orb of her fate.
And as its ghostly, self-emitting light beamed up in the darkness with weird brilliancy, there by it, in gold and furs and war panoply, huge, fierce, and lowering, stood--AR-HAP HIMSELF! Ay, and behind him, towering over the crouching Martians, blocking every outlet and street, were scores and hundreds of his men.

Never was surprise so utter, ambush more complete.

Even I was transfixed with astonishment, staring with open-mouthed horror at the splendid figure of the barbarian king as he stood aglitter in the ruddy light, scowling defiance at the throng around him.