r had welcomed Rodriguez
in a manner worthy of the dignity of the Chair that he held at
Saragossa, he made an easy gesture and Morano was free again.

"Master," said Morano to the Professor, as soon as he found he could
move, "master, it looks like magic." Picture to yourself some yokel
shown into the library of a professor of Greek at Oxford, taking down
from a shelf one of the books of the Odyssey, and saying to the
Professor, "It looks like Greek"!

Rodriguez felt grieved by Morano's boorish ignorance. Neither he nor
his host answered him.

The Professor explained that he followed the mysteries dimly, owing to
a certain aspect of Orion, and that therefore his class were gone to
their homes and were hunting; and so he studied alone under
unfavourable auspices. And once more he welcomed Rodriguez to his roof,
and would command straw to be laid down for the man that Rodriguez had
brought from the Inn of the Dragon and Knight; for he, the Professor,
saw all things, though certain stars would hide everything.

And when Rodriguez had appropriately uttered his thanks, he added with
all humility and delicate choice of phrase a petition that he might be
shown some mere rudiment of the studies for which that illustrious
chair in Saragossa was famous. The Professor bowed again and, in
accepting the well-rounded compliments that Rodriguez paid to the
honoured post he occupied, he introduced himself by name. He had been
once, he said, the Count of the Mountain, but when his astral studies
had made him eminent and he had mastered the ways of the planet nearest
the sun he took the title Magister Mercurii, and by this had long been
known; but had now forsaken this title, great as it was, for a more
glorious nomenclature, and was called in the Arabic language the Slave
of Orion. When Rodriguez heard this he bowed very low.

And now the Professor asked Rodriguez in which of the activities of
life his interest lay; for the Chair of Magic at Saragossa, he said,
was concerned with them all.

"In war," said Rodriguez.

And Morano unostentatiously rubbed his hands; for here was one, he
thought, who would soon put his master on the right way, and matters
would come to a head and they would find the wars. But far from
concerning himself with the wars of that age, the Slave of Orion
explained that as events came nearer they became grosser or more
material, and that their grossness did not leave them until they were
some while passed