But Gonfal before replying considered for a while the trophies which were the increment of his younger, smaller and more energetic rivals’ heroism. These trophies were, indeed, sufficiently remarkable.

Here, for one thing,—fetched from the fiery heart of the very dreadful seven-walled city of Lankha, by bustling little Prince Chedric of Lorn, after an infinity of high exploits,—was that agate which had in the years that are long past preserved the might of the old emperors of Macedon. Upon this strange jewel were to be seen a naked man and nine women, portrayed in the agate’s veinings: and this agate assured its wearer of victory in every battle. The armies of the pagan Isles of Wonder would be ready, at the first convenient qualm of patriotism or religious faith, to lay waste and rob all the wealthiest kingdoms in that part of the world, should Morvyth choose that agate as her bridal gift.

And yet Gonfal, as he now put it aside, spoke rather sadly, and said only, “Bunkhum!” in one or another of 34the foreign tongues which he had acquired during his mundivagant career of knight-errantry.

34

Gonfal then looked at an onyx. It was the onyx of Thossakan. Its wearer had the power to draw out the soul of any person, even of himself, and to imprison that soul as a captive inside this hollowed onyx; and its wearer might thus trample anywhither resistlessly. Beyond the somber gleaming of this onyx showed the green lusters of an emerald, which was engraved with a lyre and three bees, with a dolphin and the head of a bull. Misfortune and failure of no sort could enter into the house wherein was this Samian gem. But the brightest of all the ensorcelled stones arrayed upon the ebony table was the diamond of Luned, whose wearer might at will go invisible: and to this Cymric wonder Gonfal accorded the tribute of a shrug.

“This diamond,” said Gonfal then, “is a gift which a well-balanced person might loyally tender to his queen, but hardly to his prospective wife. I speak as a widower, madame: and I assure you that Prince Duneval of Orc we may dismiss from our accounting, as a too ardent lover of danger.”

Morvyth thought this very clever and naughty and cynical of him, but smilingly said nothing. And Gonfal touched the offering of pompous little Thorgny of Vigeois. This was the gray sideritis, which, when bathed in running waters and properly propitiated, told with the weak voice of an infant whatever you desired 35to learn. The secrets of war and statecraft, of all that had 

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