Fred looked at him, and then at Mike and me, with a puzzled expression
which seemed to ask: Is this a crazy freak, or an absurd, insulting
joke?
"Now," said the object of this scrutiny, turning to me, "I have a
talisman for you also, wherewith to entice the Sultan's daughter. It
is a ruby of rare size and color, and therefore valuable. But the power
of the spell it is said to possess remains to be tested. I give it to
you because in you, at this moment, are fulfilled the conditions
necessary to exercise this spell; which you do by simply taking the
jewel in your hand thus, and saying,--
Come, O royal maiden, come to me this hour."
"And she'll come, of course," said Mike, bantering me in his turn. "Now
hoist your signal and hail the daughter of the Grand Turk, and let Fred
pipe for his princess at the same auspicious moment."
"Amen!" I said, holding up the gem till the moonbeams blushed red in
it, and calling out with a strange, impulsive sense of power,--
"Come, O royal maiden, come to me this hour.
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