"Old or young?"
"An hoo-rey-yeh is never old."
"What judgment!" sneered the other. "I will take some of the old ones as well."
"What for?"
"For slaves to wait on the young. Was it not said by a wise man, 'Sweet water in the jar is not more precious than peace in the family'?"
Undoubtedly the evil genius of Byzantium in this peril was the Prince of India.
"My Lord," he had said, cynically, "of a truth a man brave in the day can be turned into a quaking coward at night; you have but to present him a danger substantial enough to quicken his imagination. These Greeks have withstood you stoutly; try them now with your power a vision of darkness."
"How, Prince?"
"In view and hearing from the walls let the hordes kindle fires to-night. Multiply the fires, if need be, and keep the thousands in motion about them, making a spectacle such as this generation has not seen; then"—
The singular man stopped to laugh.