“I HAVE a lot to tell you,” Djaro said, “so we’d better eat first. It’ll be easier talking afterwards.”

So eat they did, until they were stuffed. Then the servitors came and removed the table, chairs, and dishes. After making sure that Bilkis was not lurking again in the corridor, Djaro pulled up chairs close to the window and began to talk.

“I have to tell you something of the history of Varania,” he said. “In 1675, when Prince Paul was about to be crowned ruler, there was a revolution and he had to hide. He took refuge in the home of a humble family of minstrels, street singers who earned their living by entertaining in public.

“At the risk of their lives, they hid Prince Paul in the attic of their home. He would surely have been found, for his enemies searched high and low for him, except for the fact that a spider built a web across the trap door almost immediately after he went through. Thus it looked as if it had not been touched for days. The revolutionists saw it and did not bother to look into the attic.

“For three days Prince Paul hid there without food or water. The family of minstrels could not feed him without opening the trap door and disturbing the spider web, you see, and that was what protected him. In the end my ancestor emerged, rang the bell we now call the bell of Prince Paul to summon his followers, and drove the rebels from the city. “When he ascended the throne, he wore about his neck an emblem created for him by the nation’s finest silversmith—a silver spider on a silver chain. He proclaimed the spider Varania’s national mascot and the royal symbol of the reigning family, and decreed that henceforth no prince should be crowned unless he wore around his neck the silver spider of Prince Paul.

“From that day the spider has been a symbol of good luck in Varania. Housewives are glad when one builds its web in their homes. The webs are not disturbed and no one would injure a spider deliberately.”