Alarm at the inexplicable disappearance of St.George at dinner-time the day before and at the discovery that old Malakh was nowhere about had, by morning, deepened to unreasoning fear among them all.

And then Olivia, knowing nothing of what had taken place in the room of the tombs, had resolved upon a desperate expedient, had bundled into an airship her almost prostrate aunt, Mr.Frothingham and his excited little daughter, and had borne down upon the Palace of the Litany two hours before noon.

Amory, frantic with apprehension, had stayed behind with Jarvo, certain that St.George could not have left the mountain.

But now that Olivia stood before the prince it required but a moment to convince her that Prince Tabnit really knew nothing of St.George's whereabouts.

Indeed, since his gift of Phoenician wine, sealed three thousand years ago, and the immediate evanishment of the two Americans, his Highness had no longer vexed his thought with them, and he was genuinely amazed to know that (in a world which was an intaglio of his own designing) these two had actually spent yesterday at the king's palace on Mount Khalak.