The King's Talisman — page 41: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

32 | THE KINGS TALISMAN, kingdom is at stake, and you alone can save it. To me he looks for the gift of propitiation, and he holds my life as _ the forfeit.” For a moment, the crimson tide rushed up into the face of the fair girl, and, rising from her seat, she said, while a look of utter contempt flashed from her eyes: ‘“Would that God had made me king of Petra—no das- tard neighboring monarch should have dared to cast such contempt upon me and my people.” Al-Bassa gazed upon his daughter with a sort of wonder- ing admiration. His soul was in agony at the sacrifice he was about to make, and he would readily have given the last mite of his earthly possessions to have averted the blow, but he dared not give his life, nor did he dare to rebel against the cowardly wickedness of his king. “Come, my child,” at length said the old man, while he trembled at every joint, ‘‘time flies swiftly away, and the hour is already at hand when you must depart.” : - Again Selina sank upon the couch and buried her face in | her hands; but it was now in vain that she tried to weep. The deep, burning grief that scorched and seared her soul burned at the fountain of her tears, and from her almost broken heart nothing came forth but rending sobs. Ihe remorseless gates of a worse than Tartan prison had been thrown open before her, and to its soul-searing flames had she been consigned. She could have looked upon the cold and flinty prison-house as a paradise when compared with the fate that now awaited her; but she knew that her father’s life was at stake, and with all her power she tried to command her native fortitude to her support. But, alas! her woman's heart shrank from the fearful sacrifice, as the timid child would quail before the gloomy, ghost-peopled forest, and with her brow, her face, her neck, and her bosom all changed to marble, she arose from her couch and bade her father lead the way. Ecomichooks (Ee)