He set the candle on the floor and sprang away from the quiet figure, searching the dark.  The great silent place, with its shoulders of sarcophagi jutting from the gloom was black save for the little ring of pallid light about that prostrate form.  St. George sent his hand to his forehead, and shook himself a bit, and straightened his shoulders with a smile.

“It must be the stuff you’ve tasted,” he addressed himself solemnly.  “Heaven knows what it was.  It’s the stuff you’ve tasted.”

Though he had barely touched his lips to the rock-crystal vase St. George’s blood was pounding through his veins, and a curious exhilaration filled him.  He looked about at the rims and corners of the tombs caught by the light, and he laughed a little—­though this was not in the least what he intended—­because it passed through his mind that if King Abibaal and Queen Mitygen, for example, might be treated with the contents of the mysterious vase they would no doubt come forth, Abibaal with memories of the Queen of Sheba in his eyes, and Queen Mitygen with her casket of Alexander’s letters.  Then St. George went down on his knees again, and raised the old man’s head until it rested upon his own breast, and he passed the candle before his face, his hand trembling so that the light flickered and leaped up.

This time there was no mistaking.  The tissues of old Malakh’s ashen face and throat and pallid hands were undergoing some subtle transfiguration.  It was as if new blood had come encroaching in their veins.  It was as if the muscles were become firm and full, as if the wrinkled skin had been made smooth, the lips grown fresh, as if—­the word came to St. George as he stared, spell-stricken—­as if youth had returned.

St. George slipped down upon the stones and sat motionless.  There was a little blue, forked vein on the man’s forehead, and upon this he fastened his eyes, mechanically following it downward and back.  Lines had crossed it, and there had been a deep cleft between the eyes, but these had disappeared, leaving the brow almost smooth.  The cheeks were now tinged with colour, and the throat, where he had pulled aside the robe, showed firm and white.  Mechanically St. George passed his hand along the inert arm, and it was no more withered than his own—­the arm of no greybeard, but of a man in the prime of life.  What did it mean—­what did it mean?  St. George waited, the blood throbbing in his temples, a mist before his eyes.  What did it mean?

The minutes dragged by and still the unconscious man did not stir or unclose his eyes.  From time to time St. George pressed his hand to the heart, and found it beating on rhythmically, powerfully.  When he found himself sitting with averted head, as if he were afraid to look back at that changing face, a fear seized him that he had lost his reason and that what he imagined himself to see was a phase of madness.  So he left the old man’s side and sturdily tramped away into the huge dark of the room, resolutely explaining to himself that this was all very natural; the old man had been ill, improperly nourished, and the powerful stimulant of the wine had partly restored him.  But even while he went over it St. George knew in his heart that what had happened was nothing that could be so explained, nothing that could be explained at all by anything within his ken.