He was not, however, more perplexed and troubled than David, who, in the
little room where he had been brought and left alone with coffee and
cigarettes, served by a slave from some distant portion of the Palace,
sat facing his future.
David looked round the little room. Upon the walls hung weapons of every
kind--from a polished dagger of Toledo to a Damascus blade, suits of
chain armour, long-handled, two-edged Arab swords, pistols which had been
used in the Syrian wars of Ibrahim, lances which had been taken from the
Druses at Palmyra, rude battle-axes from the tribes of the Soudan, and
neboots of dom-wood which had done service against Napoleon at Damietta.
The cushions among which he sat had come from Constantinople, the rug at
his feet from Tiflis, the prayer-rug on the wall from Mecca.
All that he saw was as unlike what he had known in past years as though
he had come to Mars or Jupiter. All that he had heard recalled to him his
first readings in the Old Testament--the story of Nebuchadnezzar, of
Belshazzar, of Ahasuerus--of Ahasuerus! He suddenly remembered the face
he had seen looking down at the Prince's table from the panel of
mooshrabieh.
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