There was a long pause, while the Scholar and the Arab Prince perused each others features. When they again spoke it was in the rich Arabian tongue, each word a word of fire, each sentence a thought of wild enthusiasm.
“Twenty-one years, this very night, on the battle-plain amid the Syrian wilds, an Arab prince owed his life to the intercession of Aldarin the Scholar. He offered the Scholar gold for his ransom—the scholar refused the proffered dust. Speak I the truth, Aldarin?”
“Thou dost!”
“Struck by the noble nature of the thoughtful Italian, the Arab prince gave him a gift priceless in value, not to be bought with gold, or purchased with gems of price! A Book—a mighty book had descended to him, through a long line of gallant ancestors. The founder of the race of Ibrahim was a man of dark thoughts, and mysterious studies. Swept from the path of life in the midst of his mystic researches, he left THE BOOK to his children, with the last and most terrible Mystery, the final Charm, which gave importance to the whole volume, confided to their trust, in unwritten words—”
“These words thou wouldst speak to mine own ear and heart?”
“Even so, brother Aldarin! When I gave thee the Book, fraught with strange mysteries, a fearful oath, sworn by every son of the race of Ben-Malakim, bound me to keep the last words, which make the book complete, secret from thine ear, until I was assured thou hadst won the merit of the confidence.”
“Thou didst swear by the Eternal Flame, that thou wouldst meet me this very night, in the soul or in the body, living or dead.”
“I am here! The far-east rings with the fame of Aldarin the Scholar—the last secret is thine!”
“This night, at the hour of midnight, over the Altar of Marble, where the Heart of the Dead mingles its crimson-drops with the White Waters of the Alembic,—there,—will I crave the last Secret at thy hands!”
“There is one condition first.”