So that is the way King Selim the Baker began to reign, and that is the way he continued to reign. All day was feasting and drinking and making merry and music and laughing and talking. But every night at midnight the same thing happened: the lights went out, all the people began wailing and crying, and the six tall, terrible black men came with flashing torches and marched King Selim away to the beautiful statue. And every night the same voice said--“Selim! Selim! Selim! What art thou doing? To-day is feasting and drinking and merry-making; but beware of to-morrow!” [Illustration] So things went on for a twelvemonth, and at last came the end of the year. That day and night the merry-making was merrier and wilder and madder than it had ever been before, but the great clock in the tower went on--tick, tock! tick, tock!--and by and by it came midnight. Then, as it always happened before, the lights went out, and all was as black as ink. But this time there was no wailing and crying out, but everything as silent as death; the door opened slowly, and in came, not six black men as before, but nine men as silent as death, dressed all in flaming red, and the torches they carried burned as red as blood. They took King Selim by the arms, just as the six men had done, and marched him through the same entries and passageways, and so came at last to the same vaulted room. There stood the statue, but now it was turned to flesh and blood, and the eyes were open and looking straight at Selim the Baker. “Art thou Selim?” said she; and she pointed her finger straight at him. “Yes, I am Selim,” said he. “And dost thou wear the gold ring with the red stone?” said she. “Yes,” said he; “I have it on my finger.” “And dost thou wear the iron ring?” “No,” said he; “I gave that to Selim the Fisherman.” The words had hardly left his lips when the statue gave a great cry and clapped her hands together. In an instant an echoing cry sounded all over the town--a shriek fit to split the ears. The next moment there came another sound--a sound like thunder--above and below and everywhere. The earth began to shake and to rock, and the houses began to topple and fall, and the people began to scream and to yell and to shout, and the waters of the sea began to lash and to roar, and the wind began to bellow and howl. Then it was a good thing for King Selim that he wore Luck’s Ring; for, though all the beautiful snow-white palace about him and above him began to crumble to pieces like slaked lime, the sticks and the stones and the beams to fall this side of him and that, he crawled out from under it without a scratch or a bruise, like a rat out of a cellar. That is what Luck’s Ring did for him.