nmingled with
anger--"you play with me! it is Geneva!"

Basterga permitted his smile to become more apparent. "Oh no, Aurelia,"
he said lightly and almost jocosely. "Aurelia in Savoy, I assure you.
Whatever it is, however, we have no need to take it to heart, Messer
Blondel. Believe me, it comes from, and is not on its way to, the Grand
Duke's library at Turin."

The Syndic showed his displeasure by putting the map from him.

"Your taste is rather for other things," Basterga continued, affecting
to misunderstand the act. "This illuminated manuscript, now, may
interest you? It is in characters which are probably strange to you?"

"Is it Hebrew?" the Syndic muttered stiffly, his temper still asserting
itself.

"No, it is in the ancient Arabic character; that into which the works of
Aristotle were translated as far back as the ninth century of our era.
It is a curious treatise by the Arabic sage, Ibn Jasher, who was the
teacher of Ibn Zohr, who was the teacher of Averroes. It was carried
from Spain to Rome about the year 1000 by the learned Pope Sylvester the
Second, who spoke Arabic and of whose library it formed part."

"Indeed!" Blondel responded, staring at it. "It must be of great value.
How came it into your possession, Messer Basterga?"

Basterga opened his mouth and shut it again. "I do not think I can tell
you that," he said.

"It contains, I suppose, many curious things?"

"Curious?" Basterga replied impulsively, "I should say so! Why, it was
in that volume I found----" And there in apparent confusion he broke
off. He laughed awkwardly, and then, "Well, you know," he resumed, "we
students find many things interest us which would fail to touch the man
of affairs". As if he wished to change the subject, he took the
manuscript from the Syndic's hand and threw it carelessly on the table.

Messer Blondel thought the carelessness overdone, and, his interest
aroused, he followed the manuscript, he scarcely knew why, with his
eyes. "I think I have heard the name of Averroes?" he said. "Was he not
a physician?"

"He was many things," Basterga answered negligently. "As a physician he
was, I believe, rather visionary than practical. I have his _Colliget_,
his most famous work in that line, but for my part, in the case of an
ordinary disease, I would rather trust myself," with a shrug of
contempt, "to the Grand Duke's physician."

"But in the case of an extraordinary disease?" the Syndic asked
shrewdly.

Bas