Mahommed laughed. "I kept you three days on bread and water, and let you off then because I could not do without you.... But for the matter now. Under this guard—look—are not the brilliants set in the form of letters?"
Corti examined closely.
"Yes, yes; there are letters—I see them plainly—a name."
"Spell it."
"S-O-L-O-M-O-N."
"Then I have not deceived myself," Mahommed exclaimed. "Nor less has the Prince of India deceived me." He grew more serious. "A marvellous man! I cannot make him out. The more I do with him the more incomprehensible he becomes. The long past is familiar to him as the present to me. He is continually digging up things ages old, and amazing me with them. Several times I have asked him when he was born, and he has always made the same reply: 'I will tell when you are Lord of Constantinople.' ... How he hates Christ and the Christians! ... This is indeed the sword of Solomon—and he found it in the tomb of Hiram, and gives it to me as the elect of the stars now. Ponder it, O Mirza! Now at the mid of the night in which I whistle up my dogs of war to loose them on the Gabour—How, Mirza—what ails you? Why that change of countenance? Is he not a dog of an unbeliever? On your knees before me—I have more to tell you than to ask. No, spurs are troublesome. To the door and bid the keeper there bring a stool—and look lest the lock have an ear hanging to it. Old Kalil, going out, though bowing, and lip-handing me, never took his eyes off you."
The stool brought, Corti was about to sit.
"Take off your cap"—Mahommed spoke sternly—"for as you are not the Mirza I sent away, I want to see your face while we talk. Sit here, in the full of the light."
The Count seated, placed his hooded cap on the floor. He was perfectly collected. Mahommed fingered the ruby hilt while searching the eyes which as calmly searched his.
"How brave you are!" the Sultan began, but stopped. "Poor Mirza!" he began again, his countenance softened. One would have said some tender recollection was melting the shell of his heart. "Poor Mirza! I loved you better than I loved my father, better than I loved my brothers, well as I loved my mother—with a love surpassing all I ever knew but one, and of that we will presently speak. If honor has a soul, it lives in you, and the breath you draw is its wine, purer than the first expressage of grapes from the Prophet's garden down by Medina. Your eyes look truth, your tongue drips it as a broken honey-comb drips honey. You are truth as God is God."