“We are agreed,” he said to the merchant.  “The treasurer, Nilus, will hand you the payment to-morrow morning on presenting this order.”

A fresh emotion now took possession of Orion, and crying:  “Splendid!  Splendid!” he rushed up to his father and excitedly kissed his hand.  Then, turning to his mother, whose eyes were full of tears of vexation, he put his hand under her chin, kissed her brow, and exclaimed with triumphant satisfaction:  “This is how we and the emperor do business!  When the father is the most liberal of men the son is apt to look small.  Meaning no harm, worthy merchant!  As far as the hanging is concerned, it may be more precious than all the treasures of Croesus; but you have something yet to give us into the bargain before you load your camels with our gold:  Tell us what the whole work was like before it was divided.”

The Moslem, who had placed the precious tablet in his girdle, at once obeyed this request.

“You know how enormous were its length and breadth,” he began.  “The hall it decorated could hold several thousand guests, besides space for a hundred body guards to stand on each side of the throne.  As many weavers, embroiderers and jewellers as there are days in the year worked on it, they say, for the years of a man’s life.  The woven picture represented paradise as the Persians imagine it—­full of green trees, flowers and fruits.  Here you can still see a fragment of the sparkling fountain which, when seen from a distance, with its sprinkling of diamonds, sapphires and emeralds, looked like living water.  Here the pearls represent the foam on a wave.  These leaves, cut across here, belonged to a rose-bush which grew by the fountain of Eden before the evil of the first rain fell on the world.

“Originally all roses were white, but as the limbs of the first woman shone with more dazzling whiteness they blushed for shame, and since then there are crimson as well as white roses.  So the Persians say.”

“And this—­our piece?” asked Orion.

“This,” replied the merchant, with a pleasant glance at the young man, “was the very middle of the hanging.  On the left you see the judgment at the bridge of Chinvat.  The damned were not represented, but only the winged, Fravashi, Genii who, as the Persians believe, dwell one with each mortal as his guardian angel through life, united to him but separable.  They were depicted in stormy pursuit of the damned—­the miscreant followers of Angramainjus, the evil Spirit, of whom you must imagine a vast multitude fleeing before them.  The souls in bliss, the pure and faithful servants of the Persian divinity Auramazda, enter with songs of triumph into the flower-decked pleasure-garden, while at their feet the spirits were shown of those who were neither altogether cursed nor altogether blessed, vanishing in humble silence into a dusky grove.  The pure enjoyed the gifts of paradise in peace and contentment.—­All this was explained to me by a priest of the Fire-worshippers.  Here, you see, is a huge bunch of grapes which one of the happy ones is about to pluck; the hand is uninjured—­the arm unfortunately is cut through; but here is a splendid fragment of the wreath of fruit and flowers which framed the whole.  That emerald forming a bud—­how much do you think it is worth?”