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You, who, with others, have aided so manfully in the Restoration of King Romance, know that His Majesty is a Merry Monarch. You will not think, therefore, that the respectful Liberty we have taken with your Wondrous Tale (as Pamela did with the 137th Psalm) indicates any lack of Loyalty to our Lady Ayesha. Her beauties are beyond the reach of danger from Burlesque, nor does her form flit across our humble pages. May you restore to us yet the prize of her perfections, for we, at least, can never believe that she wholly perished in the place of the Pillar of Fire! Yours ever, Two of the Ama Lo-Grolla . CONTENTS. PAGE I. EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 1 II. POLLY'S NARRATIVE 12 III. LEONORA'S DISCOVERY 18 IV. THE EQUIPMENT 27 V. DOWN THE DARK RIVER 31 VI. THE ZÛ 41 VII. AMONG THE LO-GROLLAS 49 VIII. HE 59 IX. THE POWER OF HE 76 X. A BODY IN PAWN 81 XI. THE WIZARD UNBOSOMS 91 XII. THE WIZARD'S SCHEME 97 XIII. THE PERILOUS PATH 103 XIV. THE MAGIC CHAIR 113 XV. THE END 116 HE. EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. As I sat, one evening, idly musing on memories of roers and Boers, and contemplating the horns of a weendigo I had shot in Labrador and the head of a Moo Cow 1 from Canada, I was roused by a ring at the door bell. 1 A literary friend to whom I have shown your MS. says a weendigo is Ojibbeway for a cannibal. And why do you shoot poor Moo Cows?— Publisher. Mere slip of the pen. Meant a Cow Moose. Literary gent no sportsman.— Ed. All right.— Publisher. The hall-porter presently entered, bearing a huge parcel, which had just arrived by post. I opened it with all the excitement that an unexpected parcel can cause, and murmured, like Thackeray's sailor-man, 'Claret, perhaps, Mumm, I hope——' It was a Mummy Case, by Jingo! This was no common, or museum mummy case. The lid, with the gilded mask, was absent, and the under half or lower segment, painted all over with hieroglyphics of an unusual type, and green in colour—had obviously been used as a cradle for unconscious infancy. A baby had slept in the last sleeping-place of the dead! What an opportunity for the moralist! But I am not a collector of cradles. Who had sent it, and why? The question was settled…