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48 nigh two hours, yet I do not even know your name."

"I am Juma Mochanda," returned the other gravely, "a Jew from Damascus … And you?"

"Boyd Anniston, of every place in general and no place in particular."

"Your words are rather ambiguous."

"Doubtlessly, yet they should be plain enough. Simplified, I mean that I am a confirmed globe trotter."

"In that respect we differ greatly, for I have not been out of Kishm in twenty years; not since I came to work for Menehem Sorcha in his island fortress; not since the days when his beautiful daughter, Berenice, was a tiny babe."

"Ah!" ejaculated Anniston eagerly. "Twenty years ago, she was a baby—that would make her still young. Who is she? Tell me about her? Is she married?"

"She is an Armenian, daughter of the master of the Isle of Constantine. Her home is about ten miles west of Kishm Island, a veritable castle, ancient as the ruins of the watchtower at Garanan, massive as the Citadel of Tabriz. She is as beautiful as Da Vinci's famous painting in the Louvre and of the same type—a sad, melancholy beauty. Most of her time she spends in the cupola of the ancient castle, gazing o'er the torrid waters, buried deep in thought. Seldom she comes to the mainland and then only heavily veiled, for she does not like to face the insolent stare of the low caste Indians and Persians."

Anniston's pipe had gone out unnoticed in his eagerness to hear Mochanda's words.