The Dark Star

But Venem hunted up Abe Grittlefeld and told him very coolly that he

meant to ruin Brandes.

And within a month the latest public favourite, Minna Minti, sat in

her dressing-room, wet-eyed, enraged, with the reports of Venem's

private detectives locked in the drawer of her dressing table, and the

curtain waiting.

* * * * *

So complex was life already becoming to these few among the million

children of the Dark Star Erlik--to everyone, from the child that

fretted in its mother's arms under the hot wind near Trebizond, to a

deposed Sultan, cowering behind the ivory screen in his zenana,

weeping tears that rolled like oil over his fat jowl to which still

adhered the powdered sugar of a Turkish sweetmeat.

Allahou Ekber, Khodja; God is great. Great also, Ande, is Ali, the

Fourth Caliph, cousin-companion of Mahomet the Prophet. But, O

tougtchi, be thy name Niaz and thy surname Baï, for Prince Erlik

speeds on his Dark Star, and beneath the end of the argument between

those two last survivors of a burnt-out world--behold! The sword!