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!