“I got out my best Ethiopian for the occasion, and when that failed we had recourse to Arabic,” returned Stratford. “The King and Fath-ud-Din can both talk it pretty well when they like, as you know. Well, when war had once been declared by my refusing the coffee, we sat for hours arguing. It was intimated to me pretty clearly at the beginning that if I didn’t sign their treaty, I should not leave the Palace alive; but when they saw that that didn’t seem to affect me to any appreciable extent, they began to add inducements on the other side. They offered me money and precious stones--quite a comfortable little fortune, I should think--rising by degrees until either their tempers or their purses gave way. Then, evidently thinking that my obstinacy arose from a fear that the rest of you would split upon me, they offered to put every one else belonging to the Mission out of the way, and to send me back to Khemistan as a conquering hero, returning with the best treaty I could manage to obtain. When they found that wouldn’t do, they offered me Jahan Beg’s office and property if I would only sign. I was to disappear from the ken of mortals outside Ethiopia, of course, and they would represent that the Mission had all been carried off by a pestilence, leaving only the treaty behind them. Their ideas as to English credulity are distinctly Arcadian. Well, all this time the servants kept bringing in sweetmeats and sherbet and fruit; but I would not touch anything, though I was abominably thirsty, for I remembered what Miss Keeling had said about some poison that destroyed the will, and I didn’t want to be hocussed into signing. Then they started on a fresh tack, and had in a crowd of dancing-girls----” “The temptation of St Egerton!” cried Fitz, hugely delighted. “Were they very fascinating, Mr Stratford?”