"And what do ye here ?" "We be fighting-men, all," replied the Master.

He had already noted, with a thrill of admiration, the wondrous purity of the old man's Arabic.

His use of final vowels after the noun, and his rejection of the pronoun, which apocope in the Arabic verb renders necessary in the everyday speech of the people, told the Master he was listening to some archaic, uncorrupted form of the language.

Here indeed was nobility of blood, breed, speech, if anywhere! "Fighting-men, all," the Master repeated, while Leclair listened with keen enjoyment and the Legion stood attentive, with the white-burnoused horsemen giving ear to every word--astonished, no doubt, to hear Arabic speech from the lips of an unbeliever.

"We have traveled far, from the Lands of the Books.