Half a score handsome boys, bare-legged and in very short white tunics, led them from hall to hall, even to the innermost, where the Old Man kept his state.  The first hall was of cedar painted red; the second was of green wood, with a fountain in the middle; the third was deep blue, and the fourth colour of fire.  But the next hall, which was long and very lofty, was white like snow, except for the floor, which had a blood-red carpet; and there, on a white throne, sat the Old Man of Musse, himself as blanched as a swan, robed all in white, white-bearded; and about him his Assassins as colourless as he.

The ten boys knelt down and crossed their arms upon their bosoms; El Safy fell flat upon his face, and crawling so, like a worm, came at length to the steps of the throne.  The Old Man let him lie while he blinked solemnly before him.  Not the Pope himself, as Milo had once seen him, hoar with sanctity, looked more remotely, more awfully pure than this king of murder, snowy upon his blood-red field.  What gave closer mystery was that the light came strange and milky through agate windows, and that when the Old Man spoke it was in a dry, whispering voice which, with the sound of a murmur in the forest, was in tune with the silence of all the rest.  El Safy stood up, and was rigid.  There ensued a passionless flow of question and answer.  The Old Man murmured to the roof, scarcely moving his lips; El Safy answered by rote, not moving any other muscles but his jaw’s.  As for the Assassins, they stayed squat against the walls, as if they had been dead men, buried sitting.

At a sign from El Safy the abbot with veiled Jehane came down the hail, and stood before the white spectre on his throne.  Jehane saw that this was really a man.  There was a faint tinge of red at his nostrils, his eyes were yellowish and very bright, his nails coloured red.  The shape of his head was that of an old bird.  She judged him bald under his high cap; but his beard came below his breast-bone.  When he opened his mouth to speak she observed that his teeth were the whitest part of him, and his lips rather grey.  He did not seem to look at her, but said to the abbot, ’Tell me why you have come into my country, being a Frank and a Christian dog; and why you have brought with you this fair woman.’

‘My lord,’ said the abbot, after clearing his throat, ’we are lovers and servants of the great king whom you call the Melek Richard, a lion indeed in the paths of the Moslems, who makes bitter war upon your enemy the Soldan; and in defence of him we are come.  For it appears that a servant of your lordship’s, called Giafaribn Mulk, is now in Acre, which is King Richard’s good town, conspiring with the Marquess the death of our lord.’

‘It is the first I have heard of it,’ said the Old Man.  ’He was sent for a different purpose, but his hand is otherwise free.  What else have you to say?’