“ ‘Go!’
“And I went, and glad enough I was to get out of it, and here I am. Give me another cup of wine, there’s a good fellow, and tell me what is to be done?”
I shook my head, for the affair was indeed serious. As one of the poets says,
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,”
more especially if the woman is a queen and a Sorais, and indeed I feared the very worst, including imminent danger to ourselves.
“Nyleptha must be told of all this at once,” I said, “and perhaps I had better tell her; she might receive your account with suspicion.”
“Who is captain of her guard tonight?” I went on.
“Good.”
“Very well, then, there will be no chance of her being got at. Don’t look surprised. I don’t think that her sister would stick at that. I suppose one must tell Good of what has happened.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Sir Henry. “It would hurt his feelings, poor fellow! You see, he takes a lively personal interest in Sorais.”
“That’s true; and after all, perhaps there is no need to tell him. He will find out the truth soon enough. Now, you mark my words: Sorais will throw in her lot with Nasta, who is sulking up in the North there, and there will be such a war as has not been known in Zu-Vendis for centuries. Look there!” and I pointed to two Court messengers, who were speeding away from the door of Sorais’s private apartments. “Now follow me,” and I ran up a stairway into an outlook tower that rose from the roof of our quarters, taking the spyglass with me, and looked out over the palace wall. The first thing we saw was one of the messengers speeding towards the Temple, bearing, without any doubt, the Queen’s word to the High Priest Agon, but for the other I searched in vain. Presently, however, I spied a horseman riding furiously through the northern gate of the city, and in him I recognized the other messenger.
“Ah!” I said, “Sorais is a woman of spirit. She is acting at once, and will strike quick and hard. You have insulted her, my boy, and blood will flow in rivers before the stain is washed away, and yours with it, if she can get hold of you. Well, I’m off to Nyleptha. Just you stop where you are, old fellow, and try to get your nerves straight again. You’ll need them all, I can tell you, unless I have observed human nature in the rough for fifty years for nothing.” And off I went accordingly.
I gained audience of the Queen without trouble. She was expecting Curtis, and was not best pleased to see my mahogany-coloured face instead.
“Is there aught wrong with my lord, Macumazahn, that he waits not upon me? Say, is he sick?”
I said that he was well enough, and then, without further ado, I plunged into my story and told it from beginning to end. Oh, what a rage she flew into! It was a sight to see her, she looked so lovely.
“How darest thou come to me with such a tale?” she cried. “It is a lie to say that my lord was making love to Sorais, my sister.”
“Pardon me, O Queen,” I answered; “I said that Sorais was making love to your lord.”
“Spin me no spiders’ webs of words. Is not the thing the same thing? The one giveth, the other taketh; but the gift passes, and what matters it which is the most guilty? Sorais—oh I hate her!—Sorais is a queen and my sister. She had not stooped so low had he not shown the way. Oh, truly hath the poet said that man is like a snake, whom to touch is poison, and whom none can hold.”
“The remark, O Queen, is excellent, but methinks thou hast misread the poet. Nyleptha,” I went on, “thou knowest well that thy words are empty foolishness, and that this is no time for folly.”
“How darest thou?” she broke in, stamping her foot. “Has my false lord sent thee to me to insult me also? Who art thou, stranger, that thou shouldst speak to me, the Queen, after this sort? How darest thou?”
“Yea, I dare. Listen. The moments which thou dost waste in idle anger may well cost thee thy crown and all of us our lives. Already Sorais’s horsemen go forth and call to arms. In three days’ time Nasta will rouse himself in his fastnesses like a lion in the evening, and his growling will be heard throughout the North. The ‘Lady of the Night’ (Sorais) hath a sweet voice, and she will not sing in vain. Her banner will be borne from range to range and valley to valley, and warriors will spring up in its track like dust beneath a whirlwind; half the army will echo her war-cry; and in every town and hamlet of this wide land the priests will call out against the foreigner and will preach her cause as holy. I have spoken, O Queen!”
Nyleptha was quite calm now; her jealous anger had passed; and putting off the character of a lovely, headstrong lady, she, with a rapidity and completeness that distinguished her, put on that of a queen and a woman of business. The transformation was sudden but entire.
“Thy words are very wise, Macumazahn. Forgive me my folly. Ah, what a Queen I should be if only I had no heart! To be heartless—that is to
