"And to you, peace!" responded a deep voice from the doorway of the deck-house. It was evident that the utterer of this friendly antiphon was not a Lur. Fairer, taller, stouter, and older than his wild-looking crew, he was also better dressed--in a girdled robe of gray silk, with a striped silk scarf covering his hair and the back of his neck in the manner of the Arabs. A thick brown beard made his appearance more imposing, while two scars across his left cheek, emerging from the beard, suggested or added to something in him which might on occasion become formidable. As it was he stepped forward with a bow and addressed a slim young man who sat in the stern of the motor-boat. "Shall we pass as Kinglake and the Englishman of _Eothen_ did in the desert," asked the stranger, smiling, in a very good English, "because they had not been introduced? Or will you do me the honor to come on board my--ark?" The slim young man, whose fair hair, smooth face, and white clothes made him the most boyish looking of that curious company, lifted his white helmet and smiled in return. "Why not?" he assented. And, becoming conscious that his examination of this surprising stranger, who looked down at him with odd light eyes, was too near a stare, he added: "What on earth is your ark made of, Mr. Noah?" What she was made of, as a matter of fact, was what heightened the effect of remoteness she produced--a hard dark wood unknown to the lower Karun, cut in lengths of not more than two or three feet and caulked with reeds and mud. "'Make thee an ark of gopher wood,'" quoted the stranger. "'Rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and thou shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.'" "Bitumen, eh?" exclaimed the slim young man. "Where did you get it?" "Do you ask, you who drill oil at Meidan-i-Naft?" "As it happens, I don't!" smiled the slim young man. "At any rate," continued the stranger, after a scarcely perceptible pause, "let me welcome you on board the Ark." And when the unseen jinni had made it possible for the slim young man to set foot on the deck of the barge, the stranger added, with a bow: "Magin is my name--from Brazil." If the slim young man did not stare again, he at least had time to make out that the oddity of his host's light eyes lay not so much in the fact of their failing to be distinctly brown, gray, or green, as that they had a translucent look. Then he responded briefly, holding out his hand: "Matthews. But isn't this a long way from Rio de Janeiro?" "Well," returned the other, "it's not so near London! But come in and have something, won't you?" And he held aside the reed portiere that screened the door of the deck-house.