r
change and sleep till it be time for her to live again. But when shall
she die? Not yet, I ween, and while she lives, so shall he who hath
all her secret live with her. All I have it not, yet have I some, more
perchance than any who were before me. Now, to thee I doubt not that
this thing is a great mystery, therefore I will not overcome thee with
it now. Another time I will tell thee more if the mood be on me, though
perchance I shall never speak thereof again. Dost thou wonder how I
knew that ye were coming to this land, and so saved your heads from the
hot-pot?"

"Ay, oh Queen," I answered feebly.

"Then gaze upon that water," and she pointed to the font-like vessel,
and then, bending forward, held her hand over it.

I rose and gazed, and instantly the water darkened. Then it cleared, and
I saw as distinctly as I ever saw anything in my life--I saw, I say, our
boat upon that horrible canal. There was Leo lying at the bottom asleep
in it, with a coat thrown over him to keep off the mosquitoes, in such a
fashion as to hide his face, and myself, Job, and Mahomed towing on the
bank.

I started back, aghast, and cried out that it was magic, for I
recognised the whole scene--it was one which had actually occurred.

"Nay, nay; oh Holly," she answered, "it is no magic, that is a fiction
of ignorance. There is no such thing as magic, though there is such a
thing as a knowledge of the secrets of Nature. That water is my glass;
in it I see what passes if I will to summon up the pictures, which is
not often. Therein I can show thee what thou wilt of the past, if it be
anything that hath to do with this country and with what I have known,
or anything that thou, the gazer, hast known. Think of a face if thou
wilt, and it shall be reflected from thy mind upon the water. I know not
all the secret yet--I can read nothing in the future. But it is an old
secret; I did not find it. In Arabia and in Egypt the sorcerers knew
it centuries gone. So one day I chanced to bethink me of that old
canal--some twenty ages since I sailed upon it, and I was minded to
look thereon again. So I looked, and there I saw the boat and three men
walking, and one, whose face I could not see, but a youth of noble form,
sleeping in the boat, and so I sent and saved ye. And now farewell. But
stay, tell me of this youth--the Lion, as the old man calls him. I would
look upon him, but he is sick, thou sayest--sick with the fever, and
also wounded in the fr