He heard her say under her breath: “This is going to be a sleepless night. And a dangerous one.” And, turning to stare at her, saw no fear in her face, only excitement.
He still held clutched in his left hand the sheet and the knife. Now he thrust these toward her.
“What’s this damned foolery, anyway?” he demanded harshly. She took the knife with a slight shudder. “There is something engraved on the silver hilt,” she said.
He bent over her shoulder.
“Eighur,” she added calmly, “not Arabic. The Mongols had no written characters of their own.”
She bent closer, studying the inscription. After a moment, still studying the Eighur characters, she rested her left hand on his shoulder—an impulsive, unstudied movement that might have meant either confidence or protection.
“Look,” she said, “it is not addressed to you after all, but to a symbol—a series of numbers, 53-6-26.”
“That is my designation in the Federal Service,” he said, sharply.
“Oh!” she nodded slowly. “Then this is what is written in the Mongol-Yezidee dialect, traced out in Eighur characters: ‘To 53-6-26! By one of the Eight Assassins the Slayer of Souls sends this shroud and this knife from Mount Alamout. Such a blade shall divide your heart. This sheet is for your corpse.’”
After a grim silence he flung the soft white cloth on the floor.