Page:The Mating of the Blades.djvu/128

 the blade with him, he would have walked away as fast as his legs would have let him. But—“the blade was an integral part of me, don't you see?” he would add. “I couldn't have left without it. Of course not. That bit of steel had stuck by me.”

He did not have to wait long. For, a minute later, the door opened again, and this time the Hindu salaamed deeply, and there was something almost like awe in his opaque eyes, and respect in his voice as he bade the other enter.

“Thy people are sick with longing for thee, saheb!” he said in purring Persian. “Careful, Protector of the Pitiful! The steps are slippery!”

And, the lamp high in his hand and throwing flickering, fantastic shadows, he led Hector through a labyrinth of rooms, some of them ablaze with raw, clashing colors, others in dull, somber shades which melted into each other; through wide corridors, supported by pillars whose capitals were shaped into pendant lotus forms, or crowned with lateral struts carved into the likenesses of horsemen or war-girt elephants. There was furniture of all ages and climes, from century old sandal-wood pieces chip-carved into flat relief to massive tables topped with slabs of Bokharan lapis lazuli; from wonderful, old, red Chinese lac to, here and there, a horribly clashing, cheap European incongruity … certainly a very wealthy man's house, decided Hector.

Once or twice they encountered native servants in rainbow-colored silks, who stepped aside and salaamed with extended hands, but even in those rooms which