Page:The Mating of the Blades.djvu/258

 princely inheritance, and how amongst the many adventurers who left Europe for Asia in search of excitement and treasure, there had been a young Englishman.

He became an officer in the army of the Gengizkhani Ameer, whose name was Jaffar Sirajud-din, finally rising to the rank of captain-general, but there were bitter words when he fell in love with the Ameer's youngest daughter, Khadijah Sultana.

There was a fight, a duel; English blade against Tamerlani blade. The Ameer was vanquished and, prostrate on the ground, the point of the other's weapon flickering above his heart, he agreed to the marriage.

But, since Khadijah Sultana had been won in battle, instead of an exchange of rings, there was an exchange of swords.

Shortly after the birth of her little son, the princess died. The Englishman took the child, and returned to his native country; and the prophecy said that, before he left, he swore a most solemn oath to the Ameer that whenever a Gengizkhani needed the sword of his English cousins, the latter must obey the summons.

But, back here in the heart of Asia, in the course of the centuries, while they remembered the prophecy itself, the ancient prophecy which said that, in the Gengizkhani's hour of need, a man would come out of the West, in his hand the blade of Jaffar Sirajuddin, they had forgotten the name of the Englishman and his family. All they had to link them with the past was the Englishman's sword, the one with which