“Open his mouth and hold down the tongue,” said Owen.

The prince obeyed, pressing down the tongue with a snuff spoon.  Then placing the neck of the bottle as far into the throat as it would reach, Owen poured the fluid it contained into the body of the king, who made a convulsive movement and instantly seemed to die.

“He is dead,” said one; “away with the false prophet!”

“It may be so, or it may not be so,” answered Owen.  “Wait for the half of an hour; then, if he shows no sign of life, do what you will with me.”

“It is well,” they said; “so be it.”

Slowly the minutes slipped by, while the king lay like a corpse before them, and outside of that silent ring the soldiers murmured as the wind.  The sun was sinking fast, and Hokosa watched it, counting the seconds.  At length he spoke:—­

“The half of the hour that you demanded is dead, White Man, as dead as the king; and now the time has come for you to die also,” and he stretched out his hand to take him.

Owen looked at his watch and replied:—­

“There is still another minute; and you, Hokosa, who are skilled in medicines, may know that this antidote does not work so swiftly as the bane.”

The shot was a random one, but it told, for Hokosa fell back and was silent.

The seconds passed on as the minute hand of the watch went round from ten to twenty, from twenty to thirty, from thirty to forty.  A few more instants and the game was played.  Had that dream of his been vain imagining, and was all his faith nothing but a dream wondered Owen?  Well, if so, it would be best that he should die.  But he did not believe that it was so; he believed that the Power above him would intervene to save—­not him, indeed, but all this people.

“Let us make an end,” said Hokosa, “the time is done.”

“Yes,” said Owen, “the time is done—­and the king lives!”

Even as he spoke the pulses in the old man’s forehead were seen to throb, and the veins in his neck to swell as they had swollen after he had swallowed the poison; then once more they shrank to their natural size.  Umsuka stirred a hand, groaned, sat up, and spoke:—­

“What has chanced to me?” he said.  “I have descended into deep darkness, now once again I see light.”

No one answered, for all were staring, terrified and amazed, at the Messenger—­the white wizard to whom had been given power to bring men back from the gate of death.  At length Owen said:—­

“This has chanced to you, King:  that evil which I prophesied to you if you refused to listen to the voice of mercy has fallen upon you.  By now you would have been dead, had it not pleased Him Whom I serve, working through me, His messenger, to bring you back to look upon the sun.  Thank Him, therefore, and worship Him, for He alone is Master of the Earth,” and he held the crucifix before his eyes.

The humbled monarch lifted his hand—­he who for many years had made obeisance to none—­and saluted the symbol, saying:—­