room in McDougle
Street, and that he has passed his hand before our faces and made us
dream all this. And father is safe after all."

"But it isn't all a dream," St. George said softly, "it can't
possibly all be a dream, you know."

She met his eyes for a moment.

"Not your coming away here," she said, "if the rest is true I
wouldn't want that to be a dream. You don't know what courage this
will give us all."

She said "us all," but that had to mean merely "us," as well. St.
George turned and looked over the terrace. What an Arabian night it
was, he was saying to himself, and then stood in a sudden amazement,
with the uncertain idea that one of the Schererazade magicians had
answered that fancy of his by appearing.

A little shrine hung thick with vines, its ancient stone chipped and
defaced, stood on the terrace with its empty, sightless niche turned
toward the sea. Leaning upon its base was an old man watching them.
His eyes under their lowered brows were peculiarly intent, but his
look was perfectly serene and friendly. His stuff robe hung in
straight folds about his singularly erect figure, and his beard and
hair were not all grey. But he was very old, with incredibly brown
and wrinkled flesh, and his face was vacant, as if the mind were
asleep.

As he looked, St. George knew him. Here on the top of this mountain
was that amazing old man whom he had last seen in the banquet hall
at the Palace of the Litany--that old Malakh for whom Olivia had so
unexplainably interceded.

"What is that man doing here?" St. George asked in surprise.

[Illustration]

"He is a mad old man, they said," Olivia told him, "down there they
call him Malakh--that means 'salt'--because they said he always
weeps. We had stopped to look at a metallurgist yesterday--he had
some zinc and some metals cut out like flowers, and he was making
them show phosphorescent colours in his little dark alcove. The old
man was watching him and trying to tell him something, but the
metallurgist was rude to him and some boys came by and jostled him
and pushed him about and taunted him--and the metallurgist actually
explained to us that every one did that way to old Malakh. So I
thought he was better off up here," concluded Olivia tranquilly.

St. George was silent. He knew that Olivia was like this, but
everything that proved anew her loveliness of soul caught at his
heart.

"Tell me," he said impulsively, "what made you let him stay last
night,