he added. "Whence came you, White Man, how are you named, and what is
your mission to me and to my people?"

"King, I come from beyond the sea; I am named Messenger, and my mission
is to deliver to you the saying of God, my King and--yours."

At these words a gasp of astonishment went up from those who stood
within hearing, expecting as they did to see them rewarded by instant
death. But Umsuka only said:--

"'My King and yours'? Bold words, Messenger. Where then is this King to
whom I, Umsuka, should bow the knee?"

"He is everywhere--in the heavens, on the earth, and below the earth."

"If He is everywhere, then He is here. Show me the likeness of this
King, Messenger."

"Behold it," Owen answered, thrusting forward the crucifix.

Now all the great ones about the king stared at this figure of a dying
man crowned with thorns and hanging on a cross, and then drew up their
lips to laugh. But that laugh never left them; a sudden impulse, a
mysterious wave of feeling choked it in their throats. A sense of the
strangeness of the contrast between themselves in their armed multitudes
and this one white-robed man in his loneliness took hold of them, and
with it another sense of something not far removed from fear.

"A wizard indeed," they thought in their hearts, and what they thought
the king uttered.