n imagery--but doubtless not more highly coloured
than poor Heru's emotion warranted--how delightedly that lady had
received the news.

Si also did me another service, presenting me to the porter's wife, who
kept a kind of boarding-house at the gates of Ar-hap's palace for
gentlemen and ladies with grievances. I had heard of lobbying before,
and the presentation of petitions, though I had never indulged myself
in the pastime; but the crowd of petitioners here, with petitions as
wild and picturesque as their own motley appearances, was surely the
strangest that ever gathered round a seat of supreme authority.

Si whispered in the ear of that good woman the nature of my errand,
with doubtless some blandishment of her own; and my errand being one so
much above the vulgar and so nearly touching the sovereign, I was at
once accorded a separate room in the gate-house, whence I could look
down in comparative peace on the common herd of suitors, and listen to
the buzz of their invective as they practised speeches which I
calculated it would take Ar-hap all the rest of his reign to listen to,
without allowing him any time for pronouncing verdicts on them.

Here I made myself comfortable, and awaited the return of the sovereign
as placidly as might be. Meanwhile fate was playing into my feeble
hands.

I have said it was hot weather. At first this seemed but an outcome of
the Martian climate, but as the hours went by the heat developed to an
incredible extent. Also that red glare previously noted in the west
grew in intensity, till, as the hours slipped by, all the town was
staring at it in panting horror. I have seen a prairie on fire,
luckily from the far side of a comfortably broad river, and have ridden
through a pine-forest when every tree for miles was an uplifted torch,
and pungent yellow smoke rolled down each corrie side in grey rivers
crested with dancing flame. But that Martian glare was more sombre and
terrible than either.

"What is it?" I asked of poor Si, who came out gasping to speak to me
by the gate-house.

"None of us know, and unless the gods these Thither folk believe in are
angry, and intend to destroy the world with yonder red sword in the
sky, I cannot guess. Perhaps," she added, with a sudden flash of
inspiration, "it comes by your machinations for Heru's help."

"No!"

"If not by your wish, then, in the name of all you love, set your wish
against it. If you know any incantations suitable