Page:The council of seven.djvu/98



Saul Hartz had not long to wait. Almost immediately the Egyptian reappeared. Without speaking a word he contrived to make clear that Mr. Wygram would receive his visitor.

The Colossus was ushered at once into the presence of a remarkable personage. A man about forty years old was seated cross-legged on the ground, after the fashion of the East, in a room hardly less exotic. Its cushions, rugs and curtains evoked the Orient as surely as the tchibouk its occupant was contemplatively sucking and the fumes of the pungent-scented Arabian tobacco which filled the whole place. The man who sat on a cushion on the richly carpeted floor wore a burnoose, slippers and a turban. In every detail of surroundings and pose he recalled a very different scene, but the dark-eyed, close-shaven face, in spite of a withdrawn look which lent it a subtle asceticism, was too fair of skin to suggest an exclusively eastern type.

The keenly penetrating Hartz who had never seen this man before, was a little taken aback by the sight he presented. Almost the first thought that entered