and wake the inhabitants to woe!'

"So I rose and did the bidding of the star."

And while Morven was yet speaking, a servant of the king's house
ran up to the crowd, crying loudly:

"The king is dead!"

So they went into the palace and found the king stark upon his
couch, and his huge limbs all cramped and crippled by the pangs
of death, and his hands clenched as if in menace of a foe--the
foe of all living flesh!

Then fear came on the gazers, and they looked on Morven with a
deeper awe than the boldest warrior would have called forth: and
they bore him back to the council-hall of the wise men, wailing
and clashing their arms in woe, and shouting, ever and anon:

"_Honor to Morven, the prophet!_"

And that was the first time the word PROPHET was ever used in
those countries.


At noon, on the third day from the king's death, Siror sought
Morven, and he said:

"Lo, my father is no more, and the people meet this evening at
sunset to elect his successor, and the warriors and the young