Volume I Part 30 (1/2)
The Governor's head was drooping; his hands crossed themselves upon his stomach; and when he raised his eyes, they were full of deprecation and entreaty.
”Your Highness--most n.o.ble Lord--condescend to hear me.”
”Speak. I am awake to hear the falsehood thou hast invented in excuse of thy perfidy to us, and thy treason to him, the most generous of masters, the most chivalrous of knights.”
”Your Highness has greatly misconceived me. In the first place you have forgotten the crowded state of the Castle. Every room and pa.s.sage is filled with the suite and escort of”--
He hesitated, and turned pale, like a man dropped suddenly into a great danger. The shrewd guest caught at the broken sentence and finished it:
”Of Prince Mahommed!”
”With the suite and escort,” the Governor repeated.... ”In the next place, it was not my intention to leave you unprovided. From my own apartments, light, beds and seats were ordered to be brought here, with meats for refreshment, and water for cleansing and draught. The order is in course of execution now. Indeed, your Highness, I swear by the first chapter of the Koran”--
”Take something less holy to swear by,” cried the Prince.
”Then, by the bones of the Faithful, I swear I meant to make you comfortable, even to my own deprivation.”
”By thy young master's bidding?”
The Governor bent forward very low.
”Well,” said the Prince, softening his manner--”the misconception was natural.”
”Yes--yes.”
”And now thou hast only to prove thy intention by making it good.”
”Trust me, your Highness.”
”Trust thee? Ay, on proof. I have a commission”--
The Prince then drew a ring from his finger.
”Take this,” he said, ”and deliver it to the Emir Mirza.”
The a.s.surance of the speech was irresistible; so the Turk held out his hand to receive the token.
”And say to the Emir, that I desire him to thank the Most Compa.s.sionate and Merciful for the salvation of which we were witnesses at the southwest corner of the Kaaba.”
”What!” exclaimed the Governor. ”Art thou a Moslem?”
”I am not a Christian.”
The Governor, accepting the ring, kissed the hand offering it, and took his departure, moving backward, and with downcast eyes, his manner declarative of the most abject humility.
Hardly was the door closed behind the outgoing official, when the Prince began to laugh quietly and rub his hands together--quietly, we say, for the feeling was not merriment so much as self-gratulation.
There was cleverness in having doubted the personality of the individual who received the refugees at the landing; there was greater cleverness in the belief which converted the Governor into the Prince Mahommed; but the play by which the fact was uncovered--if not a stroke of genius, how may it be better described? The Prince of India thought as he laughed:
”Not long now until Amurath joins his fathers, and then--Mahommed.”