The King's Talisman — page 95: what you’re looking at

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

86 THE KING’S TALISMAN. should have dared to disobey him, but there was that in the air and mien of the old man before him that held him back from its most terrible purpose, and smothering the words that rose to his lips, he turned to the eunuchs, and with a calmness that was far more fearful in its import, he said: «Take that old man away, slaves, and confine him in one of the dungeons beneath the Augustan Pillar.” “‘ Modad,” said Al-Bassa, asthe eunuchs laid their hands upon him, ‘‘ tell me all that you meditate against me. I can bear it with as much fortitude as you can speak it.” ‘Death or liberty are af your own disposal,” the king re- plied. <‘‘ But no man can live who dares to disobey me.” ‘<Then Iam one who dares to do even that,” fell calmly from the old counselor’s lips, and the next instant he was led away from his monarch’s presence. The Augustan Pillar was a huge marble column which raised its towering form within the western park of the palace, and beneath it, connecting with the cells beneath the palace itself, were several small dungeons, the farthest removed of any from sight and hearing, and the most dark and loathsome in the vicinity. Al-Bassa well knew the locality, and he knew, too, the sure fate of those who once crossed their fatal thresholds. What the silent waters of the Bosporus were to the Turk- ish sultan, were the Augustan dungeons to the Petran king. Their deep and gloomy silence told no tales of those who slept the last sleep within their massive walls, nor did the prayers of their victims fall upon other ears than those of God. He who once passed within their precincts by the fiat of the king, never again saw the light of day—no tongue might ever again lisp to them the sweet sounds of friendship, nor might the hum of the busy world again break over their senses. The old man knew all this, and yet, when he turned away from the monarch, he did so with firmness, but ere he had Gomichooks (Eo)