“Senestro, would you condemn this one without allowing him a word in his own defence?  Is it fair?  Besides, he does not look like an impostor to me.  I like his face.  Perhaps he is one of the chosen!”

At the last word the Bar frowned.  His glance shifted suddenly to Watson, a swift look of ice-cold calculation.

“Very, very true, O Aradna.  I, too, would have him speak in his own behalf.  Let him amuse us with his tongue.  What would your majesty care to hear, O Aradna, from this phantom?”

The words were of biting satire.  Chick wheeled upon the Bar.  Their eyes clashed; an encounter not altogether to Watson’s credit.  He was a bit unsteady, a trifle uncertain of his power.  He had calculated on the superstition of the Rhamdas to hold him up until he caught his footing, and this unexpected scepticism was disconcerting.  However, he was no coward; the feeling passed away almost at once.  He strode straight up to the throne of the Bar; and once more he spoke from sheer impulse: 

“The Aradna has spoken true, O Senestro, or sinister, or whatever you may be called.  I demand fair hearing!  It is my due; for I have come from another world.  I follow—­the Jarados!”

If Watson had supposed that he had taken the Bar’s measure, he was mistaken.  The prince’s eyes suddenly glinted with a fierce pleasure.  Like a flash his antagonism shifted to something astonishingly like admiration.

“Well spoken!  Incidentally, you are well made and sound looking, stranger.”

“Passably,” replied Watson.  “I do not care to discuss my appearance, however.  I am certainly no more ill-favoured than some others.”

“And impertinent,” continued the other, quite without malice.  “Do you know anything about the Bar, to whom you speak so saucily?”

“I know that you have intimated that I may be an impostor.  You have done this, after hearing what the learned Rhamda Geos has said.  You know the facts; you know that I have come from the Jarados.  I—­”

But it wasn’t Watson’s words that held the Bar’s attention.  Chick’s straight, well-knit form, his quick-trained actions, overbalanced the question of the prophet in the mind of the man on the throne.  His delight was self-evident.

“Truly you are soundly built, stranger; you are made of iron and whipcord, finely formed, quick and alert.”  He threw a word to one of his heavy-faced attendants, then suddenly stood up and descended from his throne.  He came up and stood beside Watson.

Chick straightened.  The prince was an inch the taller; his bare arms long-muscled, lithe, powerful; under the pink skin Chick could see the delicate, cat-like play of strength and vitality.  He sensed the strength of the man, his quick, eager, instinctive glance, his panther-like step and certainty of graceful movement.

“Stranger,” spoke the Bar, “indeed you are an athlete!  What is your nationality—­Kospian?”