Could old Malakh possibly know something of the king?  The hope returned to St. George insistently, and he watched, spending his thought in new and extravagant conjecture, his mental vision blurring the details of that heaped-up, glistening confusion; and on the opposite side of the table the old man lifted and laid down that rainbow stuff of dreams, delighting in it, speaking softly above it.  Had he been the king’s friend, St. George was asking—­but why did no one know anything of him?  Or had he been an enemy who had done the king violence—­but how was that possible, in his age and feebleness?  Mystifying as the matter was, St. George exulted as much as he marveled; for it would be his, at all events, to place the jewels in Olivia’s hands and clear her father’s name; he longed to step out of the dark and confront the old man and seize the casket out of hand, and he would probably have done so and taken his chances at getting back to the upper world, had he not been chained to his corner by the irresistible hope that the old man knew something more—­something about the king.  And while he wondered, reflecting that at any cost he must prevent the replacing of the pivotal stone, he saw old Malakh take up his taper, turn away from the table, and open a door which the room’s central pillar had cut from his view.

He was around the table in an instant.  The open door revealed three stone steps which the old man was ascending, one at a time.  Following him cautiously St. George heard a door grate outward at the head of the stair, saw the taper move forward in darkness, and the next moment found himself standing in the room of the tombs of the kings of Yaque.  And he saw that the panel which had swung inward to admit them was set low in the monolithic tomb of King Abibaal himself.

Old Malakh had crossed swiftly to the wall opposite the tomb, and stood before the vacant niche which was to be occupied, as Jarvo had announced, by “His Majesty, King Otho, by the grace of God.”  There, setting aside his taper, the old man stretched his arms upward to the empty shelf and with a gesture of inconceivable weariness bowed his head upon them and stood silent, the leaping candle-light silvering his hair.

“Upon my soul,” thought St George with finality, “he’s murdered him.  Old Malakh has murdered the king, and it’s driven him crazy.”

With that he did step out of the dark, and he laid his hand suddenly upon the old man’s shoulder.

“Malakh,” he said, “what have you done with the king?”

The old man lifted his head and turned toward St. George a face of singular calm.  It was as if so many phantoms vexed his brain that a strange reality was of little consequence.  But as his eyes met those of St. George a sudden dimness came over them, the lids fluttered and dropped, and his lips barely formed his words: 

“The king,” he said.  “I did not leave the king.  It was the king who somehow went away and left me here—­”