"No, I do not remember," said Shélobe. "But perhaps later I will remember it. All that the palace offered to our eyes," she continued, "was a rez-de-chaussée adorned with arabesque cobwebs, and a second story giving onto the lake. But under the rez-de-chaussée, and extending under the island, was a souterrain, a vast cavern where we were led, and where there lay sixty thousand purses full of mithrile, and 200 barrels of spider-venom. My father remained seated at the opening of the cavern, casting a sombre regard on the depths of the horizon, while my mother rested her head on his shoulder and I played at her feet, marvelling, with the astonishment of childhood that enlarges things, the escarpments of Morgaï, the castles of Quirithe-Oungallant, rising white and angular from the blue waters of the lake, the great black shapeless masses and deep grey shadows that loomed above us, where now and again a dull red light flickered up under the lowering clouds when the gods lit up their opium-pipes.
"'Patience, Atterlobiki,' said my father. ‘If the sultan grants pardon, we shall return in triumph to Quirithe-Oungallant; if not, we shall flee.'
"'And what if they do not allow us to flee?' said my mother.
"'Then they shall have to tusks of Ibn-Babar to reckon with,' said my father with a grim smile.
