Olivia was very pale. She had hardly slept, night-long. Alarm at the
inexplicable disappearance of St. George at dinner-time the day
before and at the discovery that old Malakh was nowhere about had,
by morning, deepened to unreasoning fear among them all. And then
Olivia, knowing nothing of what had taken place in the room of the
tombs, had resolved upon a desperate expedient, had bundled into an
airship her almost prostrate aunt, Mr. Frothingham and his excited
little daughter, and had borne down upon the Palace of the Litany
two hours before noon. Amory, frantic with apprehension, had stayed
behind with Jarvo, certain that St. George could not have left the
mountain. But now that Olivia stood before the prince it required
but a moment to convince her that Prince Tabnit really knew nothing
of St. George's whereabouts. Indeed, since his gift of Phoenician
wine, sealed three thousand years ago, and the immediate evanishment
of the two Americans, his Highness had no longer vexed his thought
with them, and he was genuinely amazed to know that (in a world
which was an intaglio of his own designing) these two had actually
spent yesterday at the king's palace on Mount Khalak.
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