“Bitumen, eh?” exclaimed the slim young man. “Where did you get it?”
“Do you ask, you who drill oil at Meidan-i-Naft?”
“As it happens, I don’t!” smiled the slim young man.
“At any rate,” continued the stranger, after a scarcely perceptible pause, “let me welcome you on board the Ark.” And when the unseen jinni had made it possible for the slim young man to set foot on the deck of the barge, the stranger added, with a bow: “Magin is my name—from Brazil.”
If the slim young man did not stare again, he at least had time to make out that the oddity of his host’s light eyes lay not so much in the fact of their failing to be distinctly brown, grey, or green, as that they had a translucent look. Then he responded briefly, holding out his hand:
“Matthews. But isn’t this a long way from Rio de Janeiro?”
“Well,” returned the other, “it’s not so near London! But come in and have something, won’t you?” And he held aside the reed portière that screened the door of the deck-house.
“My word! You do know how to do yourself!” exclaimed Matthews. His eye took in the Kerman embroidery on the table in the centre of the small saloon, the gazelle skins and silky Shiraz rugs covering the two divans at the sides, the fine Sumak carpet on the floor, and the lion pelt in front of an inner door. “By Jove!” he exclaimed again. “That’s a beauty!”
“Ha!” laughed the Brazilian. “The Englishman spies his lion first!”
“Where did you find him?” asked Matthews, going behind the table for a better look. “They’re getting few and far between around here, they say.”