Suddenly, she was crying. And Tony patted her shoulder comfortingly, and took aside her veil and wiped her eyes. And as suddenly she was not crying at all, but looking at him very strangely.
“What—what do you think of me now?” she asked in a small voice.
“My dear,” said Tony with a sigh, “I think you are probably the most intelligent girl I ever met in my life.”
The caravan halted before the intricately sculptured gateway of the djinn king’s palace, and there was no more time for even semiprivate conversation.
Tony descended from the camel in a very stately fashion. To the gorgeously robed djinn chamberlain who greeted him in the king’s name, he relayed Ghail’s request—that she be allowed to share the captivity of the Queen of Barkut during his visit. Shortly, Ghail went away behind a djinnee who was at the moment some twelve feet tall, of a greenish complexion, and wearing a necklace of diamonds each one of which was a good deal larger than a baseball. Tony chatted amiably with the chamberlain who greeted him as a prince and a general of Barkut.
“A most comfortable journey!” said Tony, as a procession formed up to escort him to his quarters. “Your camels, in particular, arouse my admiration!”
He swaggered in exactly the manner of the solitary general he had come in contact with in the greatest war of the human race.
“Admirable!” he repeated in that general’s very tones. “The one who carried me is a very pearl among camels!” The camel he had ridden turned its head. It looked at him sentimentally. It sighed gustily. It giggled.
Nasim.