them spoken a fullness of the mouth!'
'Is it a wager?' said Ascobaruch.
'It is a wager!' said the High Priest.
'That's that, then,' said Ascobaruch. 'Now, I don't want to be mixed up
in any unpleasantness, so what I think I'll do while what you might
call the preliminaries are being arranged is to go and take a little
trip abroad somewhere. The MiddleLakes are pleasant at this time of
year. When I come back, it's possible that all the formalities will
have been completed, yes?'
'Rely on me, by Hec!' said the High Priest grimly, as he fingered his
weapon.
* * * * *
The High Priest was as good as his word. Early on the morrow he made
his way to the Linx, and found the King holing-out on the second green.
Merolchazzar was in high good humour.
'Greetings, O venerable one!' he cried, jovially. 'Hadst thou come a
moment sooner, them wouldst have seen me lay my ball dead--aye, dead as
mutton, with the sweetest little half-mashie-niblick chip-shot ever
seen outside the sacred domain of S'nandrew, on whom'--he bared his
head reverently--'be peace! In one under bogey did I do the hole--yea,
and that despite the fact that, slicing my drive, I became ensnared in
yonder undergrowth.'
The High Priest had not the advantage of understanding one word of what
the King was talking about, but he gathered with satisfaction that
Merolchazzar was pleased and wholly without suspicion. He clasped an
unseen hand more firmly about the handle of his knife, and accompanied
the monarch to the next altar. Merolchazzar stooped, and placed a small
round white object on a little mound of sand. In spite of his austere
views, the High Priest, always a keen student of ritual, became
interested.
'Why does your Majesty do that?'
'I tee it up that it may fly the fairer. If I did not, then would it be
apt to run a long the ground like a beetle instead of soaring like a
bird, and mayhap, for thou seest how rough and tangled is the grass
before us, I should have to use a niblick for my second.'
The High Priest groped for his meaning.
'It is a ceremony to propitiate the god and bring good luck?'
'You might call it that.'
The High Priest shook his head.
'I may be old-fashioned,' he said, 'but I should have thought that, to
propitiate a god, it would have been better to have sacrificed one of
these kaddiz on his altar.'
'I confess,' replied the King, thoughtfully, 'that I have often felt
that it would be a relief to one's feelings to sacrifice one or two
kaddiz, but The Pro for some reason or other has set his face
against it.' He swung at the ball, and sent it forcefully down the
fairway. 'By Abe, the son of Mitchell,' he cried, shading his eyes, 'a
bird of a drive! How truly is it written in the book of the prophet
Vadun, 'The left hand applieth the force, the right doth but guide.
Grip not, therefore, too closely with the right hand!' Yesterday I was
