The Best Short Stories of 1917 Part 25

"I say! Those aren't bad!" he exclaimed. "More of the spoils of Susa?"

"Ho! My trunks? I had them made up the river, like the rest. But I wonder what would interest you in my museum. Let's see." He bent over one of the chests, unlocked it, rummaged under the cover, and brought out a broad metal circlet which he handed to Matthews. "How would that do for a crown, eh?"

The young man took it over to the porthole. The metal, he then saw, was a soft antique gold, wrought into a decoration of delicate spindles, with a border of filigree. The circlet was beautiful in itself, and astonis.h.i.+ngly heavy. But what it chiefly did for Matthews was to sharpen the sense of strangeness, of remoteness, which this bizarre galley, come from unknown waters, had brought into the familiar muddy Karun.

"As a matter of fact," went on the Brazilian, "it's an anklet. But can you make it out? Those spindles are Persian, while the filigree is more Byzantine than anything else. You find funny things up there, in caves--"

He tossed a vague hand, into which Matthews put the anklet, saying:

"Take it before I steal it!"

"Keep it, won't you?" proposed the astonis.h.i.+ng Brazilian.

"Oh, thanks. But I could hardly do that," Matthews replied.

"Why not?" protested Magin. "As a souvenir of a pleasant meeting! I have a ton of them." He waved his hand at the chests.

"No, really, thanks," persisted the young man. "And I'm afraid we must be getting on. I don't know the river, you see, and I'd like to reach Dizful before dark."

The Brazilian studied him a moment.

"As you say," he finally conceded. "But you will at least have another drink before you go?"

"No, not even that, thanks," said Matthews. "We really must be off. But it's been very decent of you."

He felt both awkward and amused as he backed out to the deck, followed by his imposing host. At sight of the two the crew scattered to their oars. They had been leaning over the side, absorbed in admiration of the white jinn-boat. Matthews' Persian servant handed up to Magin's butler a tray of tea gla.s.ses--on which Matthews also noted a bottle. In honor of that bottle Gaston himself stood up and took off his greasy cap.

"A thousand thanks, Monsieur," he said. "I have tasted nothing so good since I left France."

"In that case, my friend," rejoined Magin in French as good as his English, "it is time you returned!" And he abounded in amiable speeches and ceremonious bows until the last _au revoir_.

"_Au plaisir!_" called back Gaston, having invoked his jinni. Then, after a last look at the barge, he asked over his shoulder in a low voice: "Who is this extraordinary type, M'sieu Guy? A species of an Arab, who speaks French and English and who voyages in a galley from a museum!"

"A Brazilian, he says," imparted M'sieu Guy--whose surname was beyond Gaston's gallic tongue.

"Ah! The uncle of America! That understands itself! He sent me out a cognac, too! And did he present you to his _dame de compagnie_? She put her head out of a porthole to look at our boat. A Lur, like the others, but with a pair of blistering black eyes! And a jewel in her nose!"

"It takes you, Gaston," said Guy Matthews, "to discover a dame of company!"

II

When the white motor-boat had disappeared in the glitter of the Ab-i-Diz, Senhor Magin, not unlike other fallible human beings when released from the necessity of keeping up a pitch, appeared to lose something of his gracious humor. So, it transpired, did his decorative boatmen, who had not expected to row twenty-five miles upstream at a time when most people in that climate seek the relief of their _serdabs_--which are underground chambers cooled by running water, it may be, and by a tall _badgir_, or air chimney. The running water, to be sure, was here, and had already begun to carry the barge down the Karun.

If the high banks of that tawny stream const.i.tuted a species of air chimney, however, such air as moved therein was not calculated for relief. But when Brazilians command, even a Lur may obey. These Lurs, at all events, propelled their galley back to the basin of Bund-i-Kir, and on into the Ab-i-Shuteit--which is the westerly of those two halves of the Karun. Before nightfall the barge had reached the point where navigation ends. There Magin sent his majordomo ash.o.r.e to procure mounts. And at sunset the two of them, followed by a horse boy, rode northward six or seven miles, till the city of Shuster rose dark above them in the summer evening, on its rock that cleaves the Karun in two.

The Bazaar by which they entered the town was deserted at that hour, save by dogs that set up a terrific barking at the sight of strangers.

Here the _charvadar_ lighted a vast white linen lantern, which he proceeded to carry in front of the two riders. He seemed to know where he was going, for he led the way without a pause through long blank silent streets of indescribable filth and smells. The gloom of them was deepened by jutting balconies, and by innumerable _badgirs_ that cut out a strange black fretwork against amazing stars. At last the three stopped in front of a gate in the vicinity of the citadel. This was not one of the gateways that separate the different quarters of Shuster, but a door in a wall, recessed in a tall arch and ornamented with an extraordinary variety of iron clamps, k.n.o.bs, locks, and knockers.

Of one of the latter the _charvadar_ made repeated use until someone shouted from inside. The horse-boy shouted back, and presently his lantern caught a glitter of two eyes in a slit. The eyes belonged to a cautious doorkeeper, who after satisfying himself that the visitors were not enemies admitted the Brazilian and the Lur into a vaulted brick vestibule. Then, having looked to his wards and bolts, he lighted Magin through a corridor which turned into a low tunnel-like pa.s.sage. This led into a sort of cloister, where a covered ambulatory surrounded a dark pool of stars. Thence another pa.s.sage brought them out into a great open court. Here an invisible jet of water made an illusion of coolness in another, larger, pool, overlooked by a portico of tall slim pillars.

Between them Magin caught the glow of a cigar.

"Good evening, Ganz," his ba.s.s voice called from the court.

"Heaven! Is that you?" replied the smoker of the cigar. "What are you doing here, in G.o.d's name? I imagined you at Mohamera, by this time, or even in the Gulf." This remark, it may not be irrelevant to say, was in German--as spoken in the trim town of Zurich.

"And so I should have been," replied the polyglot Magin in the same language, mounting the steps of the portico and shaking his friend's hand, "but for--all sorts of things. If we ran aground once, we ran aground three thousand times. I begin to wonder if we shall get through the reefs at Ahwaz--with all the rubbish I have on board."

"Ah, bah! You can manage, going down. But why do you waste your time in Shuster, with all that is going on in Europe?"

"H'm!" grunted Magin. "What is going on in Europe? A great family is wearing well cut mourning, and a small family is beginning to turn green! How does that affect two quiet nomads in Elam--especially when one of them is a Swiss and one a Brazilian?" He laughed, and lighted a cigar the other offered him. "My dear Ganz, it is an enigma to me how a man who can listen to such a fountain, and admire such stars, can perpetually sigh after the absurdities of Europe! Which reminds me that I met an Englishman this morning."

"Well, what of that? Are Englishmen so rare?"

"Alas, no--though I notice, my good Ganz, that you do your best to thin them out! This specimen was too typical for me to be able to describe him. Younger than usual, possibly; yellow hair, blue eyes, constrained manner, everything to sample. He called himself Mark, or Matthew. Rather their apostolic air, too--except that he was in the Oil Company's motor-boat. But he gave me to understand that he was not in the Oil Company."

"Quite so."

"I saw for myself that he knows nothing about archaeology. Who is he?

Lynch? Bank? Telegraph?"

"He's not Lynch, and he's not Bank, and he's not Telegraph. Neither is he consul, or even that famous railroad. He's--Englis.h.!.+" And Ganz let out a chuckle at the success of his own characterization.

"Ah! So?" exclaimed Magin elaborately. "I hear, by the way, that that famous railroad is not marching so fast. The Lurs don't like it. But sometimes even Englishmen," he added, "have reasons for doing what they do. This one, at any rate, seemed more inclined to ask questions than to answer them. I confess I don't know whether it was because he had nothing to say or whether he preferred not to say it. Is he perhaps a son of Papa, making the grand tour?"

"More or less. Papa gave him no great letter of credit, though. He came out to visit some of the Oil people. And he's been here long enough to learn quite a lot of Persian."

"So he starts this morning, I take it, from Sheleilieh. But why the devil does he go to Dizful, by himself?"

"And why the devil shouldn't he? He's out here, and he wants to see the sights--such as they are. So he's going to take a look at the ruins of Susa, and at your wonderful unspoiled Dizful. s.h.i.+r Ali Khan will be delighted to get a few _tomans_ for his empty house by the river. Then the 21st, you know, is the coronation. So I gave him a letter to the Father of Swords, who--"

"Thunder and lightning!" Magin's heavy voice resounded in the portico very like a bellow. "You, Ganz, sent this man to the Father of Swords?

He might be one of those lieutenants from India who go smelling around in their holidays, so pink and innocent!"

"What is that to me?" demanded the Swiss, raising his own voice. "Or to you either? After all, Senhor Magin, are you the Emperor of Elam?"

The Brazilian laughed.

"Not yet! And naturally it's nothing to you, when you cash him checks and sell him tinned cows and quinine. But for a man who perpetually sighs after Europe, Herr Ganz, and for a Swiss of the north, you strike me as betraying a singular lack of sensibility to certain larger interests of your race. However--What concerns me is that you should have confided to this young man, with such a roll of sentimental eyes as I can imagine, that Dizful is still 'unspoiled'! If Dizful is unspoiled, he might spoil it. I've found some very nice things up there, you know.

I was even fool enough to show him one or two."

"Bah! He likes to play tennis and shoot! You know these English boys."

Magin considered those English boys in silence for a moment.

"Yes, I know them. This one told me he liked a bit of a lark! I know myself what a lark it is to navigate the Ab-i-Diz, at the end of July!

But what is most curious about these English boys is that when they go out for a bit of a lark they come home with Egypt or India in their pocket. Have you noticed that, Ganz? That's their idea of a bit of a lark. And with it all they are still children. What can one do with such people? A bit of a lark! Well, you will perhaps make me a little annoyance, Mr. Adolf Ganz, by sending your English boy up to Dizful to have a bit of a lark. However, he'll either give himself a sunstroke or get himself bitten in two by a shark. He asked me about the channel, and I had an inspiration. I told him he would have no trouble. So he'll go full speed and we shall see what we shall see. Do you sell coffins, Mr.

Ganz, in addition to all your other valuable merchandise?"