did not unclose, and St. George took up the
taper and bent to scan the quiet face.

St. George looked, and sank to his knees and looked again, holding
the light now here, now there, and peering in growing bewilderment.
What he saw he was wholly unable to define. It was as if a mask were
slowly to dissolve and yet to lie upon the features which it had
covered, revealing while it still made mock of concealing. Colour
was in the lips, colour was stealing into the changed face. The
_changed_ face--changed, St. George could not tell how; and the
longer he looked, and though he rubbed his eyes and turned them
toward the dark and then looked again, moving the taper, he could
neither explain nor define what had happened.

He set the candle on the floor and sprang away from the quiet
figure, searching the dark. The great silent place, with its
shoulders of sarcophagi jutting from the gloom was black save for
the little ring of pallid light about that prostrate form. St.
George sent his hand to his forehead, and shook himself a bit, and
straightened his shoulders with a smile.

"It must be the stuff you've tasted," he addressed himself solemnly.
"Heaven knows what it was. It's the stuff you've tasted."

Though he had barely touched his lips to the rock-crystal vase St.
George's blood was pounding through his veins, and a curious
exhilaration filled him. He looked about at the rims and corners of
the tombs caught by the light, and he laughed a little--though this
was not in the least what he intended--because it passed through
his mind that if King Abibaal and Queen Mitygen, for example, might
be treated with the contents of the mysterious vase they would no
doubt come forth, Abibaal with memories of the Queen of Sheba in his
eyes, and Queen Mitygen with her casket of Alexander's letters. Then
St. George went down on his knees again, and raised the old man's
head until it rested upon his own breast, and he passed the candle
before his face, his hand trembling so that the light flickered and
leaped up.

This time there was no mistaking. The tissues of old Malakh's ashen
face and throat and pallid hands were undergoing some subtle
transfiguration. It was as if new blood had come encroaching in
their veins. It was as if the muscles were become firm and full, as
if the wrinkled skin had been made smooth, the lips grown fresh, as
if--the word came to St. George as he stared, spell-stricken--as if
_youth_ had returned.

St. Ge