The King's Talisman — page 173: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

164 LHE KING’S TALISMAN. CHAPTER XX, A HAPPY DENOUEMENT. The sun rose above the towering, craggy walls of Petra, and as its morning beams went dancing over the city, gild- ing its domes and marble monuments, its obelisks and mausoleums, they found the people stirring anxiously through all the streets, hastening along with impulsive strides, and seeming to take little note of what passed around them. ‘The king was up, and full of preparation. All was bustle about the royal palace; servants were hastening to and fro with their portentous countenances, and couriers came and went with their messages from various parts of the city. Toward the middle of the valley in which was nestled the city, stood the Petran amphitheater. There it stood, and there it yet stands, a monument of man’s toil and labor, hewn out from the solid rock, its arena, its rising rows of benches, its dens, and its columns, all fashioned by the chisel from out the tenacious granite. Its brazen doors were thrown open, and gradually the eunuchs were to stand before the royal lion and tiger, and though human- ity shrank palsied from the dreaiful spectacle, yet curios- ity carried the sway, and the people rushed to behold the scene. : ; Dense and more dense grew the gathering crowd, till thousands had gained seats upon the granite benches, and at length a flourish of trumpets announced that the king approached. ‘The people arose to their feet as Modad en- — tered with his train, and a forced, unnatural shout went forth to greet him. It was not such a shout as he had be- Eomichbooks: co