"Do you not know?" he cried as he went, "I am Malakh. Read one another's eyes and you will know. I am Malakh."
As the guards closed about him he tottered and would have fallen save that they caught him roughly and pressed to a door, half carrying him, and he did not resist. But as speech was renewed another voice broke the murmur, and with great amazement St. George knew that this was Olivia's voice.
"No," she cried—but half as if she distrusted her own strange impulse, "let him stay—let him stay."
St. George saw the prince's look question her. He himself was unable to account for her unexpected intercession, and so, one would have said, was Olivia. She looked up at the prince almost fearfully, and down the length of the listening table, and back to the old man whose eyes were upon her face.
"He is an old man, your Highness," St. George heard her saying, "let him stay."
Prince Tabnit, who gave a curious impression of doing everything that he did in obedience to inertia rather than in its defiance, indicated some command to the puzzled guards, and they led old Malakh to a stone bench not far from the dais, and there he sank down, looking about him without surprise.
"It is well," he said simply, "Malakh has come."
While St. George was marveling—but not that the old man spoke the English, for in Yaque it was not surprising to find the very madmen speaking one's own tongue—Balator explained the man.
"He is a poor mad creature," Balator said. "He walks the streets of Med saying 'Melek, Melek,' which is to say, 'king,' and so he is seeking the king. But he is mad, and they say that he always weeps, and therefore they pretend to believe that he says 'Malakh,' which is to say 'salt.' And they call him that for his tears. Doubtless the princess does not understand. Her Highness has a tender heart."
St. George was silent. The incident was trivial, but Olivia had never seemed so near.