eived him as he fell, measuring his length upon
the stones before King Otho's future tomb.

St. George caught down the light and knelt beside him. Death seemed
to have come "pressing within his face," and breathing hardly
disquieted his breast. St. George fumbled at the old man's robe, and
beneath his fingers the heart fluttered never so faintly. He
loosened the cloth at the withered throat, passed his hand over the
still forehead, and looked desperately about him.

The other inmates of the palace were, he reflected, about two good
city blocks from him; and he doubted if he could ever find his
unaided way back to them. Mechanically, though he knew that he
carried no flask, he felt conscientiously through his pockets--a
habit of the boy in perplexity which never deserts the man
in crises. In the inside pocket of the coat that he was
wearing--Amory's coat--his fingers suddenly closed about
something made of glass. He seized it and drew it forth.

It was a little vase of rock-crystal, ornamented with gold
medallions, covered with exquisite and precise engraving of great
beauty and variety of design--gryphons, serpents, winged discs, men
contending with lions. St. George stared at it uncomprehendingly. In
the press of events of the last eight-and-forty hours Amory had
quite forgotten to mention to him the prince's intended gift of
wine, almost three thousand years old, sealed in Phoenicia.

St. George drew the stopper. In an instant an odour, spicy,
penetrating, delicious, saluted him and gave life to the dead air of
the room. For a moment he hesitated. He knew that the flask had not
been among Amory's belongings and that he himself had never seen it
before. But the odour was, he thought, unmistakable, and so powerful
that already he felt as if the liquor were racing through his own
veins. He touched it to his lips; it was like a full draught of some
marvelous elixir. Sudden confidence sat upon St. George, and
thanking his guiding stars for the fortunate chance, he
unhesitatingly set the flask to the old man's lips.

There was a long-drawn, shuddering breath, a fluttering of the
eyelids, a movement of the limbs, and after that old Malakh lay
quite still upon the stones. Once more St. George thrust his hand
within the bosom of the loose robe, and the heart was beating
rapidly and regularly and with amazing force. In a moment deep
breaths succeeded one another, filling the breast of the unconscious
man; but the eyelids