As though he were conscious of being watched, the little man turned
sharply, exhibiting his wrinkled forehead, broad at the brows, narrow
and high in the middle, showing, too, a Socratic nose half buried in the
midst of the gray hair which grew as high as the prominent cheek bones,
and suggesting the idea of a polished ivory ball lying in a nest of
grayish wool. Indeed all that was visible of the face above the beard
might have been carved out of old ivory, so far as the hue and quality
of the surface were concerned; and if it had been necessary to sculpture
a portrait of the man, no material could have been chosen more fitted
to reproduce faithfully the deep cutting of the features, to render the
close network of the wrinkles which covered them like the shadings of a
line engraving, and at the same time to give the whole that appearance
of hardness and smoothness which was peculiar to the clear, tough skin.
The only positive colour which relieved the half tints of the face lay
in the sharp bright eyes which gleamed beneath the busy eyebrows like
tiny patches of vivid blue sky seen through little rifts in a curtain of
cloud. All expression, all mobility, all life were concentrated in those
two points.

The Wanderer rose to his feet.

"Keyork Arabian!" he exclaimed, extending his hand. The little man
immediately gripped it in his small fingers, which, soft and delicately
made as they were, possessed a strength hardly to have been expected
either from their shape, or from the small proportions of him to whom
they belonged.

"Still wandering?" asked the little man, with a slightly sarcastic
intonation. He spoke in a deep, caressing bass, not loud, but rich in
quality and free from that jarring harshness which often belongs to very