bottles of coloured powders, mortars, retorts,
gas-burners, and huge dusty books. There appeared to be no outlet from
the room, but the young man pressed his finger on a spot behind one of
the bottles on a shelf, and a circular door, like the one by which they
had entered, swung slowly open in the opposite wall.

"We have arrived," said the young man. "Please to follow."

He stooped and entered the circular doorway, and the others, one by one,
followed. They found themselves in a rich and luxurious apartment,
softly lighted by a hanging lamp; in the center was a table, littered
with open books and scrolls of paper, and bearing notably a great round
globe of solid crystal.

Beside the table, on a divan, reclined what appeared to be a dry and
shriveled mummy.

CHAPTER XXII

SIX ENCHANTED SOULS

"This is my great-great-grandfather," said the young man.

The room in which they stood was hung about on all the walls with rare
and beautiful rugs, and similar rugs covered the floor. Richly
embroidered cushions and delicate silk and cashmere shawls lay on the
few easy chairs that were disposed about the room. The bowl of the
hanging lamp, above the table, was of bits of amber and orange and ruby
glass, through which shone a subdued and mellow light. Near the ceiling
were three or four small openings, covered with iron gratings, and the
air in the apartment was pure, except for the odour of tobacco. The
figure on the divan was smoking a pipe; a water-pipe, whose long
flexible stem reached to the floor, where its bowl rested.

Shiraz the Rug-Merchant looked at his visitors with little beady black
eyes. His skin was very dark, and shriveled and wrinkled like the skin
of a dried apple. His cheek-bones seemed as if about to break through
his cheeks, and his lips were stretched back from his teeth, which were
black and broken. His hands were like the claws of a bird. Thin white
hair straggled over his tight dark scalp. He wore a robe of some soft
material, harmoniously mottled upon a ground of maroon, and on his feet
were slippers of red morocco, pointed upwards at the toes. His turban
lay upon the table beside him.

[Illustration: Shiraz the Rug-Merchant looked at his visitors with
little beady black eyes.]

He was the smallest man the strangers had ever seen. After a searching
look at them with his beady eyes, he rose from the divan, laid down the
stem of his pipe, and stood up. He was not taller than Freddie. A