At the appointed hour we drove out three miles, and assembled in the handsome garden in front of the Emperor's palace.
We spent half an hour idling through the palace, admiring the cosy apartments and the rich but eminently home-like appointments of the place, and then the Imperial family bade our party a kind good-bye, and proceeded to count the spoons.
Then, casting off, he rowed slowly up the Thames until, below the
palace walls, he moored near to the little postern gate which let into the lower end of the garden.
The
palace was finished by next day, and the genie carried him there and showed him all his orders faithfully carried out, even to the laying of a velvet carpet from Aladdin's
palace to the Sultan's.
"Look here, heretic, have I not told thee a thousand times that I have never once in my life seen the peerless Dulcinea or crossed the threshold of her
palace, and that I am enamoured solely by hearsay and by the great reputation she bears for beauty and discretion?"
My proposal is, therefore, that we divide ourselves into two equal parties, and ascertain, by drawing lots, which of the two shall go to the
palace, and beg for food and assistance.
To-morrow I must build a
palace more beautiful than the King's, and it must be finished before evening.'
If we attempt to escape through the doors of the
palace we shall surely be captured.
She heard Prince Bumpo snoring in his bed- room at the back of the
palace. Then she tip- toed up the stairs till she came to the King's bedroom.
The lovely
palace had no other occupant, for the Nome King had left her at the entrance, which closed behind her, and in all the magnificent rooms there appeared to be no other person.
They could all talk well enough when they were out in the street; but as soon as they came inside the
palace gates, and saw the guard richly dressed in silver, and the lackeys in gold on the staircase, and the large illuminated saloons, then they were abashed; and when they stood before the throne on which the Princess was sitting, all they could do was to repeat the last word they had uttered, and to hear it again did not interest her very much.
Then came more dignitaries, and the officers of the
palace and of the army, and finally two figures entirely muffled in scarlet silk, so that not a feature of either was discernible.
"Even now he has followed me to the very heart of thy
palace, Kulan Tith, for the sole purpose of assassinating me.
As the ruler of Ptarth, followed by his courtiers, descended from the landing-stage above the
palace, the servants dropped into their places in the rear of their royal or noble masters, and behind the others one lingered to the last.
On the same day we proceeded to the
palace inhabited by Lord Montbarry at the time of his last illness and death.