Amory absently lifted the decanter, and then looked at it with some curiosity. The decanter was like a vase, ornamented with gold medallions covered with exquisite and precise engraving of great beauty and variety of design. Serpents, men contending with lions, sacred trees and apes were chased in the gold, and the little cups of sard were engraved in pomegranates and segments of fruit and pendent acorns, and were set with cones of cornelian. The cups were joined by a long cord of thick gold. Amory set his hand to the little golden stopper, perhaps hermetically sealed, he thought idly, at about the time of the accidental discovery of glass itself by the Phoenicians. Amory was not imaginative, but as he thought of the possible age of the wine, there lay upon him that fascination communicable from any link between the present and the living past. "Solomon and Sargon," he said to himself, "the geese in the capitol, Marathon, Alexander, Carthage, the Norman conquest, Shakespeare and Miss Frothingham!" He smiled and twisted the carven stopper. "And the girl is alive," he said almost wonderingly. "There has been so much Time in the world, and yet she is alive now. Down there in the banquet room." The odour of the contents of the vase, spicy, penetrating, delicious, crept out, and he breathed it gratefully. It was like no odour that he remembered. This was nothing like Rollo's "good, nitzy Burgundy"--this was something infinitely more wonderful. And the odour--the odour was like a draught. And wasn't this the wine of wines, he asked himself, to give them courage, exultation, the most superb daring when they started up that delectable mountain? St. George must know; he would think so too. "Oh, I say," said Amory to himself, "we must put some strength in Jarvo's bones too--poor little brick!" With that Amory drew the carven stopper, fitted in the little funnel that hung about the neck of the vase, poured a half-finger of the wine in each cup, and lifted one in his hand. But the mere odour was enough to make a man live ten lives, he thought, smiling at his own strange exultation. He must no more than touch it to his lips, for he wanted a clear head for what was coming. "Come, Jarvo," he cried gaily--was he shouting, he wondered, and wasn't that what he was trying to do--to shout to make some far-away voice answer him? "Come and drink to the health of the prince. Long may he live, long may he live--without us!" Amory had stood with his back to the little brown man while he poured the wine. As he turned, he lifted one cup to his lips and Rollo gravely presented the other to Jarvo. But with a bound that all but upset the velvet valet, the little man cleared the space between him and Amory and struck the cup from Amory's hand. "Adôn!" he cried terribly, "adôn! Do not drink--do not drink!"