The King's Talisman — page 59: what you’re looking at

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

50 THE KING? S TALISMAN. ing of her feelings, but on the next moment she dashed the tears from her eyes and started back to consciousness. ‘‘ Selina,” she said, in a calm, but yet powerful tone, while the brilliancy of her dark eyes told of the inten- sity of her feelings, ‘‘surely you do not mean that this | shall be?” ‘-¢Alas, my Miriam, I cannot help it!” ‘““You can help it,” exclaimed the noble-hearted girl. ‘*How know you that he who leads us on our way may not be possessed of a heart?” ‘Whoever he may be,” returned Selina, ‘‘ he has no im- mediate control over me. The king’s own Nubian guard— those ten eunuchs that -do his slightest bidding—have the sole guidance of our motions.” For a moment Miriam was silent; but at length, while her cheek turned a shade paler, and Hey nether lip trembled with a slight convulsion, she said: “God has left you one way of redemption. In your own hands He has placed the key of your virtue and purity.” Selina gazed inquiringly into her companion’s face. Mir- iam read her unspoken question, and her answer, though — equally as silent, was startlingly significant. She placed her hand within her bosom, and from the folds. of her jacket she drew forth a short dagger, and as its blade gleamed in the struggling star-beam that peeped through the pavilion, Selina instinctively grasped it. A moment she held it in her hand, and then dropping it upon the floor, she murmured, hesitatingly: ‘“No, no; that cannot be. A thousand times would I prefer it to the fate that awaits me, but my father might fall a sacrifice upon the altar of my own salvation.” ‘No; the king dare not do it. Modad is a villain, but God knows he is a greater coward. I tell thee, the base monarch will never dare to take your father’s life. No, no, Eomicbooks (Elo)