he Captain
Orme is the quest of adventure and war, since being a rich man in his
own country he needs no further wealth. That of him whom you call Black
Windows, but whose name is Higgs, is the pure love of learning. In
England and throughout the West he is noted for his knowledge of dead
peoples, their languages, and customs, and it is to study these that he
has undertaken so terrible a journey. As for Quick, he is Orme's man,
who has known him from childhood, an old soldier who has served with him
in war and comes hither to be with the master whom he loves."

"Ah!" said Joshua, "a servant, a person of no degree, who yet dares to
threaten me, the premier prince of the Abati, to my face."

"In the presence of death all men are equal, Prince. You acted in a
fashion that might have brought his lord, who was daring a desperate
deed, to a hideous doom."

"And what do I care about his lord's desperate deeds, Physician? I see
that you set store by such things, and think those who accomplish them
great and wonderful. Well, we do not. There is no savage among the
barbarous Fung would not do all that your Orme does, and more, just
because he is a savage. We who are civilized, we who are cultivated,
we who are wise, know better. Our lives were given us to enjoy, not to
throw away or to lose at the sword's point, and, therefore, no doubt,
you would call us cowards."

"Yet, Prince, those who bear that title of coward which you hold one of
honour, are apt to perish 'at the sword's point.' The Fung wait without
your gates, O Prince."

"And therefore, O Gentile, we hire you to fight the Fung. Still, I
bear no grudge against your servant, Quick, who is himself but a
white-skinned Fung, for he acted according to his nature, and I forgive
him; only in the future let him beware! And now--for a greater matter.
The Child of Kings is beautiful, she is young and high spirited; a new
face from another land may perchance touch her fancy. But," he added
meaningly, "let the owner of that face remember who she is and what
he is; let him remember that for any outside the circle of the ancient
blood to lift his eyes to the daughter of Solomon is to earn death,
death slow and cruel for himself and all who aid and abet him. Let him
remember, lastly, that this high-born lady to whom he, an unknown and
vagrant Gentile, dares to talk as equal to equal, has from childhood
been my affianced, who will shortly be my wife, although it may please
her to