CHAPTER III.
HOW KÉRABAN MET VAN MITTEN, AND WAS GREATLY SURPRISED AT HIS APPEARANCE.
"My lord Kéraban," was very much "on the surface," to employ a modern term. This was the case physically as well as morally. He was, in face, about forty years old, at least fifty in his figure, and actually forty-five. Yet his face was intelligent, his figure majestic. He wore a beard, turning grey, which was cut rather close, and divided into two points. His eyes were black and piercing, as sensitive to passing impressions as the most delicately adjusted scales to the weight of a grain. His chin was square, his nose somewhat hooked, and this feature added to the natural piercing appearance of the dark eyes. His lips were parted sufficiently to display his white and even teeth. His forehead was high, and displayed a vertical fold or line—a true type of obstinacy—between the bushy black brows. Kéraban's face was peculiar, and one not easily forgotten by any one who had ever seen it, if only once.
Kéraban, in his dress, remained faithful to the old Turkish costume of the time of the Janissaries. The large turban, the capacious trousers, the sleeveless waistcoat garnished with enormous buttons, the shawl around the waist already sufficiently developed by nature, and, finally, the caftan with its majestic folds. There was nothing European in this style of dress, which contrasted strongly with the modern costume of the Orientals. It was designed to repress the invasions of industrial enterprise, a protest in favour of local colour which had a tendency to disappear, a defiance hurled at the edicts of the Sultan Mahmoud, who had upheld the modern costume of the Turk.
It is scarcely necessary to add that Seigneur Kéraban had a servant—a man about twenty-five years of age,
