A thin mist which fell with daybreak drew a veil over the horrible glare in the west for an hour or two, and taking advantage of the slight alleviation of heat, I rose and went into the gardens to enjoy a dip in a pool, making, with its surrounding jungle of flowers, one of the pleasantest things about the wood-king's forest citadel. The very earth seemed scorched and baking underfoot--and the pool was gone! It had run as dry as a limekiln; nothing remained of the pretty fall which had fed it but a miserable trickle of drops from the cascade above. Down beyond the town shone a gleam of water where the bitter canal steamed and simmered in the first grey of the morning, but up here six months of scorching drought could not have worked more havoc. The very leaves were dropping from the trees, and the luxuriant growths of the day before looked as though a simoon had played upon them. I staggered back in disgust, and found some show of official activity about the palace. It was the king's custom, it appeared, to hear petitions and redress wrongs as soon after his return as possible, but today the ceremony was to be cut short as his majesty was going out with all his court to a neighbouring mountain to "pray away the comet," which by this time was causing dire alarm all through the city. "Heaven's own particular blessing on his prayers, my friend," I said to the man who told me this. "Unless his majesty's orisons are fruitful, we shall all be cooked like baked potatoes before nightfall, and though I have faced many kinds of death, that is not the one I would choose by preference. Is there a chance of myself being heard at the throne? Your peculiar climate tempts me to hurry up with my business and begone if I may." "Not only may you be heard, sir, but you are summoned. The king has heard of you somehow, and sent me to find and bring you into his presence at once." "So be it," I said, too hot to care what happened. "I have no levee dress with me. I lost my luggage check some time ago, but if you will wait outside I will be with you in a moment." Hastily tidying myself up, and giving my hair a comb, as though just off to see Mr. Secretary for the Navy, or on the way to get a senator to push a new patent medicine for me, I rejoined my guide outside, and together we crossed the wide courtyard, entered the great log-built portals of Ar-hap's house, and immediately afterwards found ourselves in a vast hall dimly lit by rays coming in through square spaces under the eaves, and crowded on both sides with guards, courtiers, and supplicants. The heat was tremendous, the odour of Thither men and the ill-dressed hides they wore almost overpowering. Yet little I recked for either, for there at the top of the room, seated on a dais made of rough-hewn wood inlet with gold and covered with splendid furs, was Ar-hap himself.