which smouldered the world and all the worlds. Half way did Leoncia cross herself, while Torres, swept away by his own awe, completed his own crossing of himself and with moving lips of silence enunciated his favorite prayer to the Virgin. Even Francis and Henry looked, and could not take their gaze away from the twin wells of blue that seemed almost dark in the shade of the long black eyelashes.
'A blue-eyed brunette,' Francis managed to whisper.
But such eyes! Bound they were, rather than long. And yet thy were not round. Square they might have been, had they not been more round than square. Such shape had they that they were as if blocked off in the artist's swift and sketchy way of establishing circles out of the sums of angles. The long, dark lashes veiled them and perpetuated the illusion of their darkness. Yet was there no surprise nor startlement in them at first sight of her visitors. Dreamily incurious were they, yet were they languidly certain of comprehension of what they beheld. Still further, to awe those who so beheld, her eyes betrayed a complicated totality of paradoxical alivenesses. Pain trembled its quivering anguish perpetually impending. Sensitiveness moistily hinted of itself like a spring rain-shower on the distant sea-horizon or a dew-fall of a mountain morning. Pain ever pain resided in the midst of languorous slumberousness. The fire of immeasurable courage threatened to glint into the electric spark of action and fortitude. Deep slumber, like a palpitant, tapestried background, seemed ever ready to obliterate all in sleep. And over all, through all, permeating all, brooded ageless wisdom'. This was accentuated by cheeks slightly hollowed, hinting of asceticism. Upon them was a flush, either hectic or of the paint-box.
When she stood up, she showed herself to be slender and fragile as a fairy. Tiny were her bones, not too generously flesh-covered; yet the lines of her were not thin. Had either Henry or Francis registered his impression aloud, he would have proclaimed her the roundest thin woman he had ever seen.
The Sun Priest prostrated his aged frame till he lay stretched flat out on the floor, his old forehead burrowing into the grass mat. The rest remained upright, although Torres evidenced by a crumpling at the knees that he would have followed the priest's action had his companions shown signs of accompanying him. As it was, his knees did partly crumple, but straightened again and stiffened under the controlled example of Leoncia and the Morgans.
At first the Lady had no eyes for aught but Leoncia; and, after a careful looking over of her, with a curt upward lift of head she commanded her to approach. Too imperative by far was it, in Leoncia's thought, to proceed from so etherially beautiful a creature, and she sensed with immediacy an antagonism that must exist between them. So she did not move, until the Sun Priest muttered harshly that she must obey. She approached, regardless of the huge, long-haired hound, threading between the tripods and past the beast, nor would stop until commanded by a second nod as curt as the first. For a long minute the two women gazed steadily into each other's eyes, at the end of which, with a flicker of triumph, Leoncia observed the other's eyes droop. But the flicker was temporary, for Leoncia saw that the Lady was studying her dress with haughty curiosity. She even reached out her slender, pallid hand and felt the texture of the cloth and caressed it as only a woman can.
'Priest!' she summoned sharply. 'This is the third day of the Sun in the House of Manco. Long ago I told you something concerning this day. Speak.'
Writhing in excess of servility, the Sun Priest quavered:
'That on this day strange events were to occur. They have occurred, Queen.'
Already had the Queen forgotten. Still caressing the cloth of Leoncia's dress, her eyes were bent upon it in curious examination.
'You are very fortunate,' the Queen said, at the same time motioning her back to rejoin the others. 'You are well loved of men. All is not clear, yet does it seem that vou are too well loved of men.' Her voice, mellow and low, tranquil as silver, modulated in exquisite rhythms of sound, was almost as a distant temple bell calling believers to worship or sad souls to quiet judgment. But to Leoncia it was not given to appreciate the wonderful voice. Instead, only was she aware oi anger flaming up to her cheeks and burning in her pulse.
'I have seen you before, and often,' the Queen went on.
'Never!' Leoncia cried out.
'Hush!' the Sun Priest hissed at her.
'There,' the Queen said, pointing at the great golden bowl. 'Before, and often, have I seen you there.
'You also, there,' she addressed Henry.
'And you,' she confirmed to Francis, although her great blue eyes opened wider and she gazed at him long too long to suit Leoncia, who knew the stab of jealousy that only a woman can thrust into a woman's heart.
The Queen's eyes glinted when they had moved on to rest on Torres.
'And who are you, stranger, so strangely appareled, the helmet of a knight upon your head, upon your feet the sandals of a slave?'
'I am Da Vasco,' he answered stoutly.
'The name has an ancient ring,' she smiled.
'I am the ancient Da Vasco,' he pursued, advancing unsummoiied. She smiled at his temerity but did not stay him. 'This is the helmet I wore four hundred years ago when I led the ancestors of the Lost Souls into this valley.' The Queen smiled quiet unbelief, as she quietly asked:
'Then you were born four hundred years ago?'
'Yes, and never. I was never born. I am Da Vasco. I have always been. My home is in the sun.'
Her delicately stenciled brows drew quizzically to interrogation, though she said nothing. From a gold- wrought box beside her on the divan she pinched what seemed a powder between a fragile and almost transparent thumb and forefinger, and her thin beautiful lips curved to gentle mockery as she casually tossed the powder into the great tripod. A sheen of smoke arose and in a moment was lost to sight.
'Look!' she commanded.
And Torres, approaching the great bowl, gazed into it. What he saw, the rest of his party never learned. But the Queen herself leaned forward and gazing down from above, saw with him, her face a beautiful advertisement of gentle and pitying mockery. And what Torres himself saw was a bedroom and a birth in the second story of the Bocas del Tore house he had inherited. Pitiful it was, with its last secrecy exposed, as was the gently smiling pity in the Queen's face. And, in that flashing glimpse of magic vision, Torres saw confirmed about himself what he had always guessed and suspected.
'Would you see more,' the Queen softly mocked. 'I have shown you the beginning of you. Look now, and behold your ending.'
But Torres, too deeply impressed by what he had already seen, shuddered away in recoil.
'Forgive me, Beautiful Woman,' he pleaded. 'And let me pass. Forget, as I shall hope ever to forget.'
'It is gone,' she said, with a careless wave of her hand over the bowl. 'But I cannot forget. The record will persist always in my mind. But you, O Man, so young of life, so ancient of helmet, have I beheld before this day, there in my Mirror of the World. You have vexed me much of late with your portending. Yet not with the helmet.' She smiled with quiet wisdom. 'Always, it seems to me, I saw a chamber of the dead, of the long dead, upright on their unmoving legs and guarding through eternity mysteries alien to their faith and race. And in that dolorous company did it seern. that I saw one who wore your ancient helmet… Shall I speak further?'
'No, no,' Torres implored.
She bowed and nodded him back. Next, her scrutiny centred on Francis, whom she nodded forward. She stood up upon the dais as if to greet him, and, as if troubled by the fact that she must gaze down on him, stepped from the dais to the floor so that she might gaze up into his face as she extended her hand. Hesitatingly he took her hand in his, then knew not what next to do. Almost did it appear that she read his thought, for she said:
'Do it. I have never had it done to me before. I have never seen it done, save in my dreams and in the visions shown me in my Mirror of the World.'
And Francis bent and kissed her hand. And, because she did not signify to withdraw it, he continued to hold it, while, against his palm, he felt the faint but steady pulse of her pink finger-tips. And so they stood in pose, neither speaking, Francis embarrassed, the Queen sighing faintly, while the sex anger of woman tore at Leoncia's heart, until Henry blurted out in gleeful English:
'Do it again, Francis! She likes it!'
The Sun Priest hissed silencing command at him. But the Queen, half withdrawing her hand with a startle like a maiden's, relumed it as deeply as before into Francis' clasp, and addressed herself to Henry.
'I, too, know the language you speak,' she admonished. 'Yet am I unashamed, I, who have never known a man, do admit that I like it. It is the first kiss that I have ever had. Francis for such your friend calls you obey your friend. I like it. I do like it. Once again kiss my hand.'
