"Be yourself," advised Blake. "If the director isn't handy send for the assistant director, or the camera man—even the continuity writer may have more sense than you seem to have."
"Be myself? And who thinkest thee I would be other than Richard Montmorency, a noble knight of Nimmr."
Blake shook his head in despair, then he turned to the soldiers who were standing about listening to the conversation. He thought some of them would be grinning at the joke that was being played on him, but he saw only solemn, serious faces.
"Look here," he said, addressing Paul Bodkin, "don't any of you know where the director is?"
"'Director'?" repeated Bodkin, shaking his head. "There be none in Nimmr thus y-clept, nay, nor in all the Valley of the Sepulcher that I wot."
"I'm sorry," said Blake, "the mistake is mine; but if there is no director there must be a keeper. May I see him?"
"Ah, keeper!" cried Bodkin, his face lighting with understanding. "Sir Richard is the keeper."
"My gawd!" exclaimed Blake, turning to the young man. "I beg your pardon, I thought that you were one of the inmates."
"Inmates? Indeed thou speakest a strange tongue and yet withall it hath the flavor of England," replied the young man gravely. "But yon varlet be right—I am indeed this day the Keeper of the Gate."
Blake was commencing to doubt his own sanity, or at least his judgment. Neither the young white man nor any of the negroes had any of the facial characteristics of mad men. He looked up suddenly at the keeper of the gate.