THE BOOK OF THE KING
with his back toward Fen, the blue robe hiding for an instant the center of the ring, and when he sprang up, a great book lay beside the smoldering embers. Siddereticus raised it and brushed it off.
"O Fen Effendi," he said, as he seated himself beside the little boy, "the charm is accomplished. It is The Book of the King."
It was a large, thin book, bound in soft leather and fastened with a thong. In it there was no writing—only pictures, oh, so many! colored with flat yellow and red and blue, just such figures as Siddereticus had told Fen were painted on the walls of the tombs and temples. "Pictures of battles and feasts, kings and gods and men." There were rows and rows of these queer, stiff figures, each doing a different thing, each with a story to be told. As Siddereticus slowly turned the wide pages, he told those tales.
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