command of Arabic. The modern Persian, as you know,
comes straight through from the speech of Xerxes, of Cyrus, of Darius
whom Alexander of Macedon conquered. It has been changed mainly by
taking on a load of Arabic words. Well--there wasn't a trace of the
Arabic in the tongue they were speaking.

"It sounded odd, of course--but I could understand quite easily. They
were talking about Ruth. To be explicit, they were discussing her with
exceeding frankness--"

"Martin!" she cried wrathfully.

"Well, all right," he went on, half repentantly. "As a matter of fact,
I had seen the pair steal up. My rifle was under my hand. So I lay there
quietly, listening.

"You can realize, Walter, that when I caught sight of those two,
looking as though they had materialized from Darius's ghostly hordes,
my scientific curiosity was aroused--prodigiously. So in my interest I
passed over the matter of their speech; not alone because I thought
Ruth asleep but also because I took into consideration that the mode
of polite expression changes with the centuries--and these gentlemen
clearly belonged at least twenty centuries back--the real truth is I was
consumed with curiosity.

"They had got to a point where they were detailing with what pleasure a
certain mysterious person whom they seemed to regard with much fear and
respect would contemplate her. I was wondering how long my desire to
observe--for to the anthropologist they were most fascinating--could
hold my hand back from my rifle when Ruth awakened.

"She jumped up like a little fury. Fired a pistol point blank at them.
Their amazement was--well--ludicrous. I know it seems incredible, but
they seemed to know nothing of firearms--they certainly acted as though
they didn't.

"They simply flew into the timber. I took a pistol shot at one but
missed. Ruth hadn't though; she had winged her man; he left a red trail
behind him.

"We didn't follow the trail. We made for the opposite direction--and as
fast as possible.

"Nothing happened that day or night. Next morning, creeping up a slope,
we caught sight of a suspicious glitter a mile or two away in the
direction we were going. We sought shelter in a small ravine. In a
little while, over the hill and half a mile away from us, came about two
hundred of these fellows, marching along.

"And they were indeed Darius's men. Men of that Persia which had been
dead for millenniums. There was no mistaking them, with their high,
covering sh