“Have you told anyone else of this, Daddy?” she asked abruptly. “Have you told anyone else?”
He turned his solemn little face towards her.
“Ah, there,” he said, “we have to be very discreet and careful—very careful indeed. Here and now is not the time to proclaim that Sargon, King of Kings, has come back to the civilization he did so much to found. One has to be careful, Christina Alberta. There is a spirit of opposition.
“For instance, I have told something of my first vision—dream you may call it if you like—to Mr. Hockleby. I described the resemblance between himself and Prewm. He was by no means pleased. His is a seditious, insubordinate nature. And besides—since then—I have recalled what happened—on the advice of Oujah—to Prewm....
“And I have realized since then that, though one may be convinced oneself, it does not follow that one will convince other people. It is true that Miss Hockleby and the two Miss Solbés have asked me to tell them more of my dreams—they too call them dreams. But their manner was curious rather than respectful and I have been extremely reserved with them.”
“That’s my wise Daddy,” said Christina Alberta, “You have to think of your dignity.”
“I have to think of my dignity, certainly. Nevertheless—” His hands went out in a new amplitude of gesture. “Here I am and this is my world. My world! I nursed it in its infancy. I taught it law and obedience. Here I am, the most ancient of monarchs. Rameses and Nebuchadnezzar, Greece and Rome, the Kingdoms and Empires, things of yesterday—interludes while I have been sleeping. And clearly I have been sleeping. And clearly I have not been sent back to the world without a mission. This is a great and crowded world now, Christina Alberta, but it is in a sad state of disorder. Even the newspapers remark upon it. People are not happy now. They are not happy as they were under my rule in Sumeria thousands of years ago. In the sunshine and abundance of Sumeria.”
“But what can you do, Daddy?”
“Dear Princess, my child, that I have to think out. Nothing hastily; nothing rashly.”
“No,” said Christina Alberta.