Sandi, the King-Maker by Edgar Wallace

THERE lived in the city of Rimi-Rimi a carver of wood and a thatcher of straw, who had served the Old King in the days of his greatness and had been well rewarded. He was a man of some age, and he suffered from everlasting headaches, and was wont to be silly. Because the Old King's hand had shadowed him, no man dared put him away, though it is proper, when an old man goes mad, to take him to the forest and, putting out his eyes, leave him to find his quick way to death in solitude. Once his own son and heir to his buried treasures had in his boldness stood before the king and demanded the life of his parent. And the Old King had caused a fire to be built upon the face of this undutiful one, and, after the fire had done its work, had sent him to the forest to wander with sightless eyes until the leopards made an easy kill.

This old carver's name was Somobolaka, or B'laka, and he had visions. On a night when Sanders had come back to the city to meet the Woman of Limbi, there appeared before the old man B'laka his dead master, the king. And very terrible he seemed, for he had only one leg and one arm, and where his head had been was an earthen pot. Yet B'laka knew that it was the Old King, and fell flat on his belly. And the Old King had stopped and whispered -- "