TWILIGHT LAND

“Thou mayst go now, Zadok,” said the young man,
trembling with eagerness.

Zadok laughed and vanished. The young man stood
for a while looking down at the beautiful figure of alabaster.
Then he touched the lips with the golden tip of the wand.
In an instant there came a marvellous change. He saw
the stone melt, and begin to grow flexible and soft. He
saw it become warm, and the cheeks and lips grow red
with life. Meantime a murmur had begun to rise all
through the palace. It grew louder and louder—it became
ashout. The figure of the queen that had been stone
opened its eyes.

“Who are you?” it said.

Aben Haasen the Fool fell upon his knees. ‘‘I am he
who was sent to bring you to life,” he said. “ My father
turned you to cold stone, and I—I have brought you back
to warm life again.”

The queen smiled—her teeth sparkled like pearls. ‘If
you have brought me to life, then I am yours,” she said,
and she kissed him upon the lips.

He grew suddenly dizzy; the world swam before his
eyes.

For seven days nothing was heard in the town but
rejoicing and joy. The young man lived in a golden
cloud of delight. ‘And to think,” said he, “if I had
listened to that accursed Talisman of Solomon, called
‘The Wise,’ all this happiness, this ecstasy that is now
mine, would have been lost to me.”

“Tell me, beloved,” said the queen, upon the morning
of the seventh day— thy father once possessed all the
58