ong chain, as if they meant to take prisoners. These
unwelcome _Firengis_ were also to be known by certain strange inventions
on three legs, into which they would gaze by the hour. Were they
warriors, threatening devastation? Or were they magicians, spying into
the future and laying a spell upon the people of Luristan? Their account
of themselves the Father of Swords found far from satisfactory, claiming
as they did that they proposed to build a road of iron, whereby it would
be possible for a man to go from Dizful to Khorremabad in one day. For
the rest, what business had the people of Dizful, too many of whom were
Arabs, in Khorremabad, a city of Lurs? Let the men of Dizful remain in
Dizful, and those of Khorremabad continue where they were born. As for
him, his white mules needed no road of iron to carry him about his
affairs.

Matthews, recalling his own thoughts as he leaned over the parapet of
the terrace, spoke consolingly to the Father of Swords concerning the
People of the Chain. The Father of Swords listened to him, drawing
meditatively at his waterpipe. He thereupon inquired if Matthews were
acquainted with another friend of the prince among the merchants of
Shuster, himself a _Firengi_ by birth, though recently persuaded of the
truths of Islam; and not like this visitor of good omen, in the bloom of
youth, but bearded and hardened in battles, bearing the scars of them on
his face.

Matthews began to go over in his mind the short list of Europeans he had
met on the Karun, till suddenly he bethought him of that extraordinary
barge he had encountered--could it be only a couple of days ago?

"Magin Sahib?" he asked. "I know him--if he is the one who travels in
the river in a _mehala_ not like other _mehalas_, rowed by Lurs."

"'That is a musk which discloses itself by its scent, and not what the
perfumers impose upon us,'" quoted the Father of Swords. "This man," he
continued, "our friend and the friend of our friend, warned me that they
of the chain are sons of oppression, destined to bring misfortune to the
Lurs. Surely my soul is tightened, not knowing whom I may believe."

"Rum bounder!" said Matthews to himself, as his mind went back to the
already mythic barge, and its fantastic oarsmen from these very
mountains, and its antique-hunting, history-citing master from oversea,
who quoted the Book of Genesis and who carried mysterious passengers
with nose-jewels. But our not too articulate young man was les