XLIV.
"Good! good!" cried Hum, "I've known her from a child!
She is a changeling of my management;
She was born at midnight in an Indian wild;
Her mother's screams with the striped tiger's blent,
While the torch-bearing slaves a halloo sent
Into the jungles; and her palanquin,
Rested amid the desert's dreariment,
Shook with her agony, till fair were seen
The little Bertha's eyes ope on the stars serene."
XLV.
"I can't say," said the monarch, "that may be
Just as it happen'd, true or else a bam!
Drink up your brandy, and sit down by me,
Feel, feel my pulse, how much in love I am;
And if your science is not all a sham,
Tell me some means to get the lady here."
"Upon my honor!" said the son of Cham,[1]
"She is my dainty changeling, near and d'ear,
Although her story sounds at first a little queer."
XLVI.
"Convey her to me, Hum, or by my crown,
My sceptre, and my cross-surmounted globe,
I'll knock you—" "Does your majesty mean—down?
No, no, you never could my feelings probe,
To such a depth!" The Emperor took his robe,
- ↑ Cham is said to have been the inventor of magic. Lucy learnt this from Bayle's Dictionary, and had copied a long Latin note from that work.
