irst
met, friend Darkush, you did not say nay to M. de Sidonia. It was the
plague alone that stopped us.'

'The snow on the mountain is not the same snow as fifteen years ago,
Effendi. All things change!'

'Let us talk, then, of scammony. The Ansarey have friends in other
lands, but if they will not listen to them, many kind words will be
lost. Things also might happen which would make everybody's shadow
longer, but if there be no sun, their shadows cannot be seen.'

Darkush shrugged his shoulders.

'If the sun of friendship does not illumine me,' resumed Baroni, 'I
am entirely lost in the bottomless vale. Truly, I would give a thousand
piastres if I could save my head by taking the capitani to your
mountains.'

'The princes of Franguestan cannot take off heads,' observed Darkush.
'All they can do is to banish you to islands inhabited by demons.'

'But the capitani of whom I speak is prince of many tails, is the
brother of queens. Even the great Queen of the English, they say, is his
sister.'

'He who serves queens may expect backsheesh.'

'And you serve a queen, Darkush?'

'Which is the reason I cannot give you a pass for the mountains, as I
would have done, fifteen years ago, in the time of her father.'

'Are her commands, then, so strict?'

'That she should see neither Moslem nor Christian. She is at war with
both, and will be for ever, for the quarrel between them is beyond the
power of man to remove.'

'And what may it be?'

'That you can learn only in the mountains of the Ansarey,' said Darkush,
with a malignant smile.

Baroni fell into a musing mood. After a few moments' thought, he
looked up, and said: 'What you have told me, friend Darkush, is very
interesting, and throws light on many things. This young prince, whom I
serve, is a friend to your race, and knows well why you are at war both
with Moslem and Christian, for he is so himself. But he is a man sparing
of words, dark in thought, and terrible to deal with. Why he wishes to
visit your people I dared not inquire, but now I guess, from what you
have let fall, that he is an Ansarey himself. He has come from a far
land merely to visit his race, a man who is a prince among the people,
to whom piastres are as water. I doubt not he has much to say to your
Queen: things might have happened that would have lengthened all our
shadows; but never mind, what cannot be, cannot be: let us talk, then,
of scammony.'

'You think he is one?' said Darku