Page:Weird Tales volume 32 number 01.djvu/103

I can in no other way describe his manner—published an order. Then, to me, "You have heard of Salah ad Din Yusuf bin Ayyub? In your language, Saladin?"

"Certainly. Who has not?"

"I am descended in direct line from Saladin; that fragment is part of the throne-rug of my ancestor, the nephew of Shirkuh of Tekrit, and sultan of Syria and Egypt. Now do you begin to see why I value that scrap?"

"Do you mean to say that that rug covered the throne of Saladin?"

"Exactly. And I shall prove it."

Even as bin Ayyub spoke, the African returned, carrying a small chest of dark wood, elaborately carved, and bound in bands of discolored metal, bluish black, like age-old silver.

"Look how the pieces match!" exulted bin Ayyub, as he took from the chest that which I saw at a glance was the other part of the relic I had discovered. The pieces did indeed match perfectly; though the last-acquired fragment was somewhat the more worn and eroded by the rough use of those who had possessed it, ignorant of its worth.

"Read, effendi! Surely you can read, else you would never have bid this afternoon."

But I insisted that bin Ayyub read and translate into English. I felt rather foolish about strutting my halting Arabic before this polished Oriental whose very English was better than my own.

And here it was, threadbare and eroded by the passing of eight centuries, the throne-rug of Saladin, that great prince who elevated himself from the castle of Tekrit, in Kurdistan, to the throne of Syria and Egypt, and reigned as Defender of the Faith and Sword of Islam. . . .

Had the auctioneer's hammer fallen just an instant earlier

"Alláhu akbar!" ejaculated bin Ayyub, sensing my thoughts. "To think of how close a race it was! A second later, and I might now be bargaining with you for your prize, offering you all my possessions for that one fragment of carpet. And you would have refused. . . . I would go barefooted through the tall flames of Gehennem for what I took from you an hour ago." Then, to the negro: "Saoud! Prepare some coffee!

"I wonder," he resumed, "if you have any truly rare rugs in your collection? Like that Isphahan, for example?"

Bin Ayyub plucked from the wall what even in that dim light I recognized as an ancient Isphahan: that deep wine-red and solemn green, that classically perfect rendition of the Shah Abbas border and field were unmistakable. It was indeed an old Isphahan, that final, supreme prize of the collector; that rarest and most costly of all rugs.

I admitted that I had not attained, and probably never should attain, to such a fabulously scarce piece of weaving.

"You are wrong, quite wrong. For since I need that wall space for Saladin's throne-rug, I shall give you that Isphahan with my thanks and apologies "

"Apologies?"

"Yes. For what I am giving you is a worthless rag compared with what I took from you this afternoon."

Such generosity is dizzying. That small, perfect Isphahan would be worth several thousand dollars even had it been ragged