ruined city, and the little company of travellers on board her
spent a never-to-be-forgotten hour on her deck watching, in an ecstasy
of delight, the constantly changing and magical effects of light, shade,
and colour as the sun went down in a blaze of glory, lighting up with
his departing beams the stupendously imposing and marvellous remains of
ancient Ophir.

As the party sat round the dinner-table that evening, Sir Reginald
entertained that portion of them who had not then been present with a
recital of what had occurred on the occasion of the ship's previous
visit to this interesting spot.

"We arrived here," said he, "about the hour of sunset, and, after
dinner, spent a very enjoyable evening in the music-room, retiring to
our cabins about midnight, neither suspecting nor fearing evil of any
sort. But when we rose next morning, and went out on deck for a turn
before breakfast, Lethbridge very quickly discovered that the ship was
beset by some hundreds of savages, who were lurking in the long grass
and crouching behind the numerous small clumps of bush and flowering
shrubs that surrounded us, and which you may possibly have noticed while
we were watching the sunset effects upon the ruins this evening.

"Naturally we regarded this fact of our beleaguerment with perfect
equanimity, for we felt that, so long as we remained in the ship, we
were absolutely safe, except, perhaps, from a stray arrow or two, to
which danger, however, we attached very little importance. But having
come here with the specific object of examining the ruins, it was, of
course, necessary that we should establish some sort of understanding
with the natives and get on friendly terms with them; so, after we had
finished breakfast, finding that the savages were still ambushed about
us, the professor arranged with Mildmay a little programme devised for
the purpose of duly impressing them with our tremendous powers and
wonderful attributes.

"Then, when everything was ready, von Schalckenberg advanced to the
gangway and, in his most imposing accents, demanded to know who was the
chief in command of the warriors who had assembled to pay homage to the
four Spirits of the Winds--meaning, of course, himself, Mildmay,
Lethbridge, and me. The professor, as I suppose you all know, is
practically a universal linguist, and by a stroke of good luck he
happened to hit, at the first shot, upon a dialect which the fellows
were able to understand. So you c