The Prince of India, vol 1 | Page 2

stern. Occasionally, from force of habit, he rested a hand
upon the rudder-oar to be sure it was yet in reach. With exception of the
two, the lookout and the steersman, all on board, officers, oarsmen, and
sailors, were asleep--such confidence could a Mediterranean calm
inspire in those accustomed to life on the beautiful sea. As if Neptune
never became angry there, and blowing his conch, and smiting with his
trident, splashed the sky with the yeast of waves! However, in 1395
Neptune had disappeared; like the great god Pan, he was dead.
The next remarkable thing about the ship was the absence of the signs
of business usual with merchantmen. There were no barrels, boxes,
bales, or packages visible. Nothing indicated a cargo. In her deepest
undulations the water-line was not once submerged. The leather shields

of the oar-ports were high and dry. Possibly she had passengers aboard.
Ah, yes! There under the awning, stretched halfway across the deck
dominated by the steersman, was a group of persons all unlike seamen.
Pausing to note them, we may find the motive of the voyage.
Four men composed the group. One was lying upon a pallet, asleep yet
restless. A black velvet cap had slipped from his head, giving freedom
to thick black hair tinged with white. Starting from the temples, a beard
with scarce a suggestion of gray swept in dark waves upon the neck and
throat, and even invaded the pillow. Between the hair and beard there
was a narrow margin of sallow flesh for features somewhat crowded by
knots of wrinkle. His body was wrapped in a loose woollen gown of
brownish-black. A hand, apparently all bone, rested upon the breast,
clutching a fold of the gown. The feet twitched nervously in the
loosened thongs of old-fashioned sandals. Glancing at the others of the
group, it was plain this sleeper was master and they his slaves. Two of
them were stretched on the bare boards at the lower end of the pallet,
and they were white. The third was a son of Ethiopia of unmixed blood
and gigantic frame. He sat at the left of the couch, cross-legged, and,
like the rest, was in a doze; now and then, however, he raised his head,
and, without fully opening his eyes, shook a fan of peacock feathers
from head to foot over the recumbent figure. The two whites were clad
in gowns of coarse linen belted to their waists; while, saving a cincture
around his loins, the negro was naked.
There is often much personal revelation to be gleaned from the
properties a man carries with him from home. Applying the rule here,
by the pallet there was a walking-stick of unusual length, and severely
hand-worn a little above the middle. In emergency it might have been
used as a weapon. Three bundles loosely wrapped had been cast against
a timber of the ship; presumably they contained the plunder of the
slaves reduced to the minimum allowance of travel. But the most
noticeable item was a leather roll of very ancient appearance, held by a
number of broad straps deeply stamped and secured by buckles of a
metal blackened like neglected silver.
The attention of a close observer would have been attracted to this

parcel, not so much by its antique showing, as by the grip with which
its owner clung to it with his right hand. Even in sleep he held it of
infinite consequence. It could not have contained coin or any bulky
matter. Possibly the man was on some special commission, with his
credentials in the old roll. Ay, who was he?
Thus started, the observer would have bent himself to study of the face;
and immediately something would have suggested that while the
stranger was of this period of the world he did not belong to it. Such
were the magicians of the story-loving Al-Raschid. Or he was of the
type Rabbinical that sat with Caiphas in judgment upon the gentle
Nazarene. Only the centuries could have evolved the apparition. Who
was he?
In the course of half an hour the man stirred, raised his head, looked
hurriedly at his attendants, then at the parts of the ship in view, then at
the steersman still dozing by the rudder; then he sat up, and brought the
roll to his lap, whereat the rigor of his expression relaxed. The parcel
was safe! And the conditions about him were as they should be!
He next set about undoing the buckles of his treasure. The long fingers
were expert; but just when the roll was ready to open he lifted his face,
and fixed his eyes upon the section of blue expanse outside the edge of
the awning, and dropped into thought. And straightway it was settled
that he was