then. Sleep."

A low sigh trembled in the hoary beard. The eyelids drooped over the
sunken eyes, there was a slight motion of the limbs, and all was still,
save for the soft and regular breathing.

"The united patience of the seven archangels, coupled with that of Job
and Simon Stylites, would not survive your acquaintance for a day,"
observed Keyork Arabian.

"Is he mine or yours?" Unorna asked, turning to him and pointing to the
sleeper.

She was quite ready to face her companion after the first shock of his
unexpected appearance. His small blue eyes sparkled angrily.

"I am not versed in the law concerning real estate in human kind in the
Kingdom of Bohemia," he answered. "You may have property in a couple of
hundredweight, more or less, of old bones rather the worse for the wear
and tear of a century, but I certainly have some ownership in the life.
Without me, you would have been the possessor of a remarkably fine
skeleton by this time--and of nothing more."

As he spoke, his extraordinary voice ran over half a dozen notes of
portentous depth, like the opening of a fugue on the pedals of an organ.
Unorna laughed scornfully.

"He is mine, Keyork Arabian, alive or dead. If the experiment fails,
and he dies, the loss is mine, not yours. Moreover, what I have done is
done, and I will neither submit to your reproaches nor listen to your
upbraidings. Is that enough?"

"Of its kind, quite. I will build an altar to Ingratitude, we will bury
our friend beneath the shrine, and you shall serve in the temple. You
could deify all the cardinal sins if you would only give your attention
to the subject, merely by the monstrously imposing proportions you would
know how to give them."

"Does it ease you to make such an amazing noise?" inquired Unorna,
raising her eyebrows.

"Immensely. Our friend cannot hear it, and you can. You dare to tell me
that if he dies you are the only loser. Do fifty years of study count
for nothing? Look at me. I am an old man, and unless I find the secret
of life here, in this very room, before many years are over, I must
die--die, do you understand? Do you know what it means to die? How can
you comprehend that word--you girl, you child, you thing of five and
twenty summers!"

"It was to be supposed that your own fears were at the root of your
anger," observed Unorna, sitting down upon her chair and calmly folding
her hands as though to wait until the storm should pass over.

"Is there an