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“I am expressing myself crudely,” he said. “I can't tell what …”

“I understand!” Aziza Nurmahal slipped her hand into his. “Thou art the 'Expected One!' Tell me—everything!”

And he told her how, according to the traditions of the Wades of Dealle, he had been forced to shoulder the guilt of his older brother, had left his father's house taking nothing with him except the blade; and he went on until he came to the curious advertisement in the newspaper, the offer to buy swords at fair prices, and the even more curious figure of the old Oriental dealer in Coal Yard Street, off Drury Lane.

“What did this old Oriental look like?” she asked; and Hector described him as well as he could, adding that he bore a curious resemblance to the Tamerlani merchant in Calcutta at whose house he had first met her.

“Might have been his brother—they looked so much alike,” he wound up.

“Indeed!” laughed the princess. “For they are brothers. The man to whom you took the blade is Hajji Akhbar Khan, Itizad el-Dowleh, my father's most trusted friend, who went to the far places to …”

“To do what?”

“To hunt for the sword of the Gengizkhani. To find a descendant of that Englishman to whom once the sword was given, by my ancestor, centuries ago. To find thee, O Al Nakia, O Truly Expected One. To prove the truth of the old prophecy, when it appeared