s prompt
about what he should say aloud. He began to find more in this interview
than he had expected. He was tickled at his host's flowery forms of
speech, and after all rather sympathized with the suspicious old
ruffian, yet it was not for him to fail in loyalty toward the "People of
the Chain." Several of them he knew, as it happened, and they had
delighted him with their wild yarns of surveying in Luristan. So he
managed no more than to achieve an appearance of slightly offended
dignity.

Considering which, out of those opaque eyes, the Father of Swords
clapped those famous hands and commanded a responsive black hat to bring
him his green chest. At that Matthews pricked up interested ears indeed.
The chest, however, when set down in front of the Father of Swords,
proved to be nothing at all like the one out of which the Brazilian had
taken his gold anklet. It was quite small and painted green, though
quaintly enough provided with triple locks of beaten iron. The Father of
Swords unlocked them deliberately, withdrew from an inner compartment a
round tin case, and from that a roll of parchment which he pressed to
his lips with infinite solemnity. He then handed it to Matthews.

He was one, our not too articulate young man, to take things as they
came and not to require, even east of Suez, the spice of romance with
his daily bread. His last days, moreover, had been too crowded for him
to ruminate over their taste. But it was not every day that he squatted
on the same rug with a scarlet-bearded old cutthroat of a mountain
chief. So it was that his more or less casual lark visibly took on, from
the perspective of this castle in Luristan, as he unrolled a gaudy
emblazonment of eagles at the top of the parchment, a new and curious
color. For below the eagle he came upon what he darkly made out to be a
species of treaty, inscribed neither in the Arabic nor in the Roman but
in the German character, between the Father of Swords and a more
notorious War Lord. And below that was signed, sealed, and imposingly
paraphed the signature of one Julius Magin. Which was indeed a novel
aspect for a Brazilian, however versatile, to reveal.

He permitted himself, did Guy Matthews, a smile.

"You do not kiss it?" observed the Father of Swords.

"In my country," Matthews began--

"But it is, may I be your sacrifice," interrupted the Father of Swords,
"a letter from the Shah of the Shahs of the _Firengis_." It was evident
that he was