The King's Talisman — page 47: what you’re looking at

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

38 THE KINGS TALISMAN. seeking his gardens, when the purple arras was once more drawn aside, but instead of the eunuch who guarded the entrance to the apartment, the aged form of Abdah Nazor, alone, unattended and unannounced, stood revealed in the king’s presence. Modad sprang half up from his couch, but an instant’s reflection told him that he had nothing to fear from a decrepit old man, and his first emotions of sud- den alarm gave place to a kind of haughty anger. ‘“ How now, thou prating babbler?” cried the king, as he looked fiercely upon the intruder. ‘‘Who conducted thee hither?” ‘“A spirit to whom you are a stranger,” calmly replied the old dervise, looking the angry monarch steadily in the eye. | ‘‘Ha, and do you beard me? Do you come hither with your mystic prating?” ‘‘ No, false monarch, I come to warn thee of the sure ven- geance of the true God,” said Abdah Nazor, not-at all moved by the wrath of the king. Modad was made almost speechless by the manner of his visitor, and for a moment he remained like onein a spasm, but he soon regained his power of utterance, and in a hiss- ing, maddened tone, but still tinctured with fear, he ex- claimed: ‘“Soothsayer, beware how you tempt me, for by the word of aruling king I swear I’ll brook not thy loose tongue. Now, what brought thee hither?” ‘‘T seek a youth, named Noureddin, the son of Ali Kinah.” | A livid spot started forth upon the monarch’s either cheek as he heard that name, and a slight tremor shook his frame, but quickly throwing off his outward fear, he replied: : ‘“What know I of the youth? If you would learn of his whereabouts, seek the depths of that mystic lore from Gomicbooks (EO)