Dan scorned the interruption and the common-sense. 'Oh, 'tis queer, looked at any way. A mound of sherds and dust higher than the gateway of the palace. I'll go bail that reed hut yonder on the top is higher than old Zubr-ul-Zamân's tower. He lives up there winter and summer, does the old Diwân, looking out over his world and the strength of it--that's what his name means, you know. His son, Khush-hâl Beg, lives in the next storey. A Jack Falstaff of a man--that's why I call him the Flesh. Then Dalel, the Devil, roams about seeking whom he may devour.'
'A charming trio; and what part have I to play in the drama?' asked George with a laugh.
'St. George, of course.'
The lad laughed louder. 'So I am in baptism. George for short. Born on the saint's day--father a parson--fire away, old chap--don't let me pull Pegasus.'
'Sure! my dear boy, and aren't you sent to fight them all? Sent into this wilderness of a place to be tempted----'
'Oh, don't talk rot, Fitzgerald! I suppose you mean about the sluice-gate; but it's sheer folly.'
'Is it? My two last subordinates didn't find it so. Perhaps the potter's thumb had slipped over their honesty. So the authorities gave me you--a real white man--and said it was my last chance. Think of that now, my boy, and be careful.'
George Keene frowned perceptibly.
'That's a fine old gateway,' he said, to change the subject. As they approached it a flock of iridescent pigeons rocketed from the dark niches to circle and flash against the sky. It was a great square block of a building cut through by one high arch of shadow, and showing the length of the tunnel in the smallness of the sunlit arch beyond. On the worn brick causeway, as they entered, half in the sunshine, half in shade, lay the scattered petals of a pomegranate blossom which some passer-by had flung aside.
'By Jove, what a colour!' said Fitzgerald: 'like drops of blood.'