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Had our advent conferred the order of knighthood upon the host, he could not have received us with more "empressement." He shook us all in turn by the hand, to the number of eight and thirty, and then presented us seriatim to his spouse, a very bejewelled lady of some forty years who, what between bugles, feathers, and her turban, looked excessively like a Chinese pagoda upon a saucer.
The mere advertisement ought to have forewarned her. It was the posters that had captured Mrs. Phillips: those dazzling apartments where bejewelled society reposed upon the "high-class but inexpensive designs" of Mr. Krebs. Artists ought to have more self-respect than to sell their talents for such purposes. The contract was concluded in Mr.
Now, when he awoke the second time he was in the bosom of darkness, and the Lily gone from his hand; so he lifted the phial to make certain of that, and groped about till he came to what seemed an urn to the touch, and into this he dropped a drop, and asked for the Lily; and a voice said, 'I caught a light from it in passing. And he came in the darkness to a tree, and a bejewelled bank, and other urns, and swinging lamps without light, and a running water, and a grassy bank, and flowers, and a silver seat, sprinkling each; and they said all in answer to his question of the Lily, 'I caught a light from it in passing. At the last he stumbled upon the steps of a palace, and ascended them, endowing the steps with speech as he went, and they said, 'The light of it went over us. He groped at the porch of the palace, and gave the door a voice, and it opened on jasper hinges, shrieking, 'The light of it went through me. Then he entered a spacious hall, scattering drops, and voices exclaimed, 'We glow with the light of it. He passed, groping his way through other halls and dusk chambers, scattering drops, and as he advanced the voices increased in the fervour of their replies, saying sequently: 'We blush with the light of it; We beam with the light of it; We burn with the light of it. So, presently he found himself in a long low room, sombrely lit, roofed with crystals; and in a corner of the room, lo! a damsel on a couch of purple, she white as silver, spreading radiance.
The white bejewelled fingers of an English countess were very near touching a bony, yellow, crab-like hand stretching a bared wrist to clutch a heap of coin a hand easy to sort with the square, gaunt face, deep-set eyes, grizzled eyebrows, and ill-combed scanty hair which seemed a slight metamorphosis of the vulture.
In front of the nobility, standing in the form of a square, were the sons of the datos each bearing golden, jewel-studded chogans, spears, krises, and maces. Inside the square stood the fifteen consuls. Back of the throne were four young princes, two bearing each the golden bejewelled kris of the Malay, another the golden sword of state, and the fourth the cimeter of the Prophet.
But the sea-bird would soar among the clouds no more, nor ride upon its native waves; so I drew near, and pulled out one of its mottled tail-feathers for a remembrance. Another day, I discovered an immense bone, wedged into a chasm of the rocks; it was at least ten feet long, curved like a cimeter, bejewelled with barnacles and small shell-fish, and partly covered with a growth of sea-weed.
A Chinese vendor of paper gauds had come into the town, and all the pretty girls were wearing his absurdities pinned on to their head kerchiefs. One girl was so fine and bejewelled that we photographed her, to the delight of her lover, who stood aside to let us have a good view. A man was selling honey in the comb accompanied by his bees, which must have followed him for miles.
"Assured of their safety, I pressed down the cap on the casket, and bound the crystal ball securely in my waistband. "Then I turned round to seize an iron hammer which I had brought with me for the deliberate purpose of smashing the accursed idol to pieces, partly in revenge, partly to secure the bejewelled eyeballs.
There was no nook or corner anywhere that could conceal a man. For a minute, still bejewelled in his robes of state and glittering as the diamonds in his head-dress caught the light from half a dozen hanging lamps, the Maharajah sat and gazed at them, his chin resting on one hand and his silk-clad elbow laid on the carved gold arm of his throne. "Why am I troubled?" he demanded suddenly.
At the left hand of our hostess stood a stolid man holding a small shovel with which he gathered in the winnings. She all the while sat passionless and cold, looking on the scene as might some glittering and bejewelled sphinx. As I gazed, as the needle whirled and stopped and once more whirled, the mad excitement of the place came creeping upon me.
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