A up me, which into shouts. “Kneel,” one whispered, “kneel, sir, or you will be seen.” And another cried: “Kneel, you without beard, and do to the only Goddess, or by the old Gods I will make myself her and you!” And so the into a roar.
But presently the word “Deucalion” to be about, and there came a in the of these enthusiasts. Deucalion, the man who had left Atlantis twenty years to Yucatan, they might know little about, but Deucalion, who not many days the Empress in the the of snakes, was a person they remembered; and when they up his possible ability for vengeance, the died away from them limply.
So when the had again, and Phorenice and saw me alone all the worshippers, I out from the and passed two of the great stones, and across the circle to where she the altar. I did not myself. At the I the which she herself had ordered when she me her minister, and then her with as Empress.
“Deucalion, man of ice,” she retorted.
“I still to the old Gods!”
“I was not to that,” said she, and looked at me with a smile.
But here Ylga came up to us with a that was white, and a hand that shook, and for my life. “If he will not the old Gods yet,” she pleaded, “surely you will him? He is a man, and not a easily. You may him later. But think, Phorenice, he is Deucalion; and if you him here for this one thing, there is no other man all the of Atlantis who would so serve—”
The Empress took the from her. “You slut,” she out. “I have you near me to my wardrobe, and my fan, and do you to put a on my policies? Back with you, this circle, or I’ll have you whipped. Ay, and I’ll do more. I’ll you as Zaemon my captain, Tarca. Shall I point a at you, and your skin with a leprosy?”
The girl her shoulders, and away cowed, and Phorenice to me. “My lord,” she said, “I am like a bird in the that has its wings. Wings have so many that I am to try them all.”
“May each new they take be for the good of Atlantis.”
“Oh,” she said, with an eye-flash, “I know what you have most at heart. But we will go to the pyramid, and talk this out at more leisure. I pray you now, my lord, me to my beast.”
It appeared then that I was to be for not her worship, and so public question on her deification. It appeared also that Ylga’s was looked upon as untimely, and, though I not the exact for either of these things, I them as they were, that they the that Zaemon had me out.
So when the Empress me her fingers—warm, they were, though so to the of war—I took them gravely, and her out of the great circle, which she had with her trickeries. I had to see our Lord the Sun take on the it was still in act; but none had come: and I that He would choose his own good time for retribution, and what He best, without my a arm to His honour.
So I this woman to the red which there in waiting, and the of the came after us as we walked. She the to the on the beast’s back, and me also and take seat her. But the place of the fan-girl was empty, and what we said as we through the there was none to overhear.
She was to know what had me after the attack on the gate, and I told her the tale, on the of Nais, and an opinion that with the girl might be to again. Only the that Zaemon upon me when he and I spoke together in the tongue, did I withhold, as it is not to repeat these save only in the High Council of the Priests itself as they the Ark of the Mysteries.
“You to have an for this Nais,” said Phorenice.
“She herself to me as more and than the common herd.”
“Ay,” she answered, with a that I think was in its way, “an Empress much that woman as her common due.”
“In what particular?”
“She the of her equals.”
“If you set up for a Goddess—” I said.
“Pah! I wish to be no Goddess to you, Deucalion. That was for the common people; it me more power with them; it helps my schemes. All you Seven higher know that of calling the fire, and it pleased me to it. Can you not be generous, and admit that a woman may be as in out these natural laws as your priests?”
“Remains that you are Empress.”
“Nor Empress either. Just think that there is a woman seated you on this cushion, Deucalion, and look upon her, and say what come to your lips. Have done with ceremonies, and have done with statecraft. Do you wish to wait on as you are till all your withers? It is well not to in these matters: I am with you there. Yet, who but a a fruit ripe, and then it till it is past its prime?”
I looked on her beauty, but as I live it left me cold. But I the that had been upon me, and a smile. “I may have been fastidious,” I said, “but I do not waiting this long.”
“Nor I. But I have played my life as a maid, time enough. I am a woman, ripe, and full-blooded, and the day has come when I should be more than what I have been.”
I let my hand on hers. “Take me to husband then, and I will be a good man to you. But, as I am speak to Phorenice the woman now, and not to the Empress, I offer that I will be no puppet.”
She looked at me sidelong. “I have been master so long that I think it will come as to be sometimes. No, Deucalion, I promise that—you shall be no puppet. Indeed, it would take a to do the if you were to against your will.”
“Then, as man and wife we will live together in the pyramid, and we will this country with all the that it has pleased the High Gods to on us. These shall be aside; the shall go to their homes, and hunt, and the in the provinces, and the Priests’ Clan shall be pacified. Phorenice, you and I will ourselves brain and into the government, and we will make Atlantis as a nation that shall once more all the world for peace and prosperity.”
Petulantly she her hand away from mine. “Oh, your conditions, and your Atlantis! You a in these manners of yours, Deucalion, that on one after the has away. Am I to do all the wooing? Is there no of love under all your ice?”
“In truth, I do not know what love may be. I have had little speech with all these years.”
“We were a pair, then, when you landed, though I have and from every man that a in all Atlantis. Some of them my for the day, but none of them have moved me deeper. No, I also have not learned what this love may be from my own personal feelings. But, sir, I think that you will teach me soon, if you go on with your coldness.”
“From what I have seen, love is for the poor, and the weak, and for those of emotions.”
“Then I would that another woman were Empress, and that I were some ill-dressed of the that a man up by force, and away to his home for passion. Ah! How I in it! How I respond if he my whim!” She laughed. “But I should lead him a sad life of it if my were not so as his.”
“We are as we are made, and we cannot our which move us.”
She looked at me with a glance. “If I do not yours, my Deucalion, there will be more trouble for this Atlantis that you set such store upon. There will be doings in this of ours if my love for you, and yours still unborn.”
I she would have had me her there in the on the mammoth’s back, the city packed with people. She had little for at any time. But for the life of me I not do it. The Gods know I was about my task, and They know also how it me. But I was a true that day, and I had put away all personal to out the which the Council had upon me. If I had how to set about it, I would have in with her mood. But where any of those about the would have been in his element, I for of a dozen words.
There was no help for it but to all, save what I actually felt, unsaid. Diplomacy I was in, and on most I had a tongue. But to with was a I had always neglected, and if I had would-be speeches out of my inexperience, Phorenice would have through the on the instant. She had been these years of her on a of these protestations, and their value with an expert’s exactness.
Nor was it a case where would have my purpose better. If I had put my position to her in plain words, it would have relations worse. And so I had to my tongue, and submit to be a clown.
“I had always heard,” she said, “that you in Yucatan were ahead of those in Egypt in all the and graces. But you, sir, do small to your vice-royalty. Why, I have had from the Nile come here, and you might almost think they had left their native shores.”
“They must have great this last twenty years, then. When last I was sent to Egypt to report, the blacks were masters of the land, and our people there only on sufferance. Their were puny, and their nothing more than forts.”
“Oh,” she said mockingly, “they are still, but they their manners. My to them, at least they all into over it. And for ten words, one of them cut off his own right hand. We the bargain, my Egyptian and I, and the hand on some in my to-day as a memento.”
But here, by a lucky for me, an which saved me from baiting. The the were their day’s attack with and some intelligence. More than once our the from their had up through the air, and against a building, and which those who the streets. Still there had been nothing to the nerves of any one at all used to the of warfare, or in any way to our courtship. But presently, it seems, they stopped from their engines, and took to them with of with the fire.
Now, against these did little harm, save only that they any that was of them when they burst; but when they upon the and of the folk, they set them instantly. There was no out these fires.
These also would have to either Phorenice or myself little of concern, as they are the and common of every siege; but the on which we had not been so properly schooled. When the of came to us the of the street, the red its trunk, and to its uneasily. When the more dense, and here and there a of the sunshine, it stopped and to trumpet.
The who it, at the which from the metal its neck, so that the ran into its flesh, and it of its bondage. But the beast’s terror at the fire, which was native to its constitution, all its new-bought of obedience. From time unknown men have the in the ground, and the has men; and the men have always used fire as a shield, and have learned to fire as the most of all enemies.
Phorenice’s to as the great more restive, and she her red viciously. “Some one shall a for this blundering,” said she. “I ordered to have this to to drums, shouting, arrows, stones, and fire, and the me that all was done, and examples.”
I my girdle. “Here,” I said, “quick. Let me you to the ground.”
She on me with a gleam. “Are you for my neck, then, Deucalion?”
“I have no mind to be I have my life.”
“Pish! There is little of danger. I will and it out. I am not one of your women, sir. But go you, if you please.”
“There is little of that now.”
Blood from the mammoth’s where the of the it, and with each drop, so did the to out from it also. With wild and it and the way it had come, like the who to stop it, and a great through the with its progress. Many must have been under foot, many killed by its trunk, but only their came to us. The castle, with its of snakes, was and tossed, so that we two had much not to be off like from a catapult. But I took a with my against the front, and one arm around a pillar, and the arm Phorenice, so as to offer myself to her as a cushion.
She there enough, with her just my chin, and the of her in to me with every I took; and the on through the narrow streets. We had the of smoke, and the original of fear, but the to have in its panic. It on with strides, its aloft, and us with its and trumpetings. We left us all those who had in that pageant, and we were on through the of the city.
The was all control. So great was its that there was no but to try and on to the castle. Up there we were its reach. To have off, if we had having out or by the fall, would have been to put ourselves at once at a disadvantage. The would have us immediately, and (as is the of these beasts), and we should have been into a in a dozen seconds.
The came to me that here was the High God’s answer to Phorenice’s sacrilege. The was to out Their by her to pieces, and I, their priest, was to be that had been done. But no direct had been me on this matter, and so I took no initiative, but on to the castle, and the Empress against in my arms.
There was no the brute: in its of it many times upon its course, the of the it. But by we left the large and behind, and got the of artisans, where and at us from their doors as we past. And then we came upon the merchants’ where men live over their that do traffic with the people over seas, and then an open space there us a of water.
“Now here,” I, “this will come to stop, and as like as not will and again the of the city.” And I myself to the shock, and took fresh upon the woman who against my breast. But with louder and the on, and presently came to the harbour’s edge, and sent the in the as it with its into the water.
But at this point the was very slackened. The great sewers, which science for the health of the city in the old King’s time, their into this part of the harbour, and the solid which they is deposited as an sludge. Into this the to and it in its rush, and when with it had come to a stop, it was irretrievably. Madly it struggled, it and trumpeted. The harbour-water and the were into one compost, and the in which we so that we were from it and away into the water.
Still there, of course, we were safe, and I was pleased to be of the bumpings.
Phorenice laughed as she swam. “You like a man, Deucalion. I you something for me the of your body. By my face! There’s more of the about you when it comes to the test than one would to you talk. How did you like the ride, sir? I it came to you as a new experience.”
“I’d have walked.”
“Pish, man! You’ll be a courtier. You should have that with me in your arms you have the had gone on for ever. Ho, the there! Hold your arrows. Deucalion, me those in that boat. Tell them that, if they so much as a of my mammoth, I’ll kill them all by torture. He’ll himself directly, and when his flurry’s done we’ll him where he is to his for a day or so, and then him out with windlasses, and him afresh. Pho! I not myself to be Phorenice, if I had no fine, red, to take me out for my rides.”
The was a ten-slave which was up from the of the as hard as well-plied make drive her, but at the of my the soldiers on her stopped their arrowshots, and the her off on a new to us up. Till then we had been across an of the harbour, so as to avoid landing where the outpoured; but we stopped now, the water, and were helped over the by most hands.
The to the captain of the port, a of a mariner, in life was to the of the great, and he to and himself at once, and to wish that his had been he saw the Empress in such peril.
“The may pass,” said she. “It’s nothing that will kill me. But I have my clothes, and a or two, and that’s as you say, good man.”
The a wish that he might be the Empress was put to such again.
But it she be with flattery. “If you are of your eyes,” said she, “let me tell you that you have gone the way to have them out from their sockets. Kill my mammoth, would you, he has himself a frolicsome? You and your want more education, my man. I shall have to teach you that port-captains and such small are very easy to come by, and very small value when got, but that my is mine—mine, do you understand?—the property of Goddess Phorenice, and as such is sacred.”
The port-captain himself her. “I am an fellow,” said he, “and was of its ornament when Phorenice came to Atlantis. But if is permitted me, I have two in the of the here who shall be to the forthwith. Doubtless it would him to make sport with them, and out the last of his upon their bodies.”
“Prisoners you’ve got, have you? How taken?”
“Under of last night they were trying to pass in the two which the mouth. But their the chain, and by the light of the the them. They were with ropes, and put in a dungeon. There is an order not to they have been a judgment?”
“It was my order. Did these offer to their with news?”
“The man has not spoken. Indeed, I think he got his death-wound in being taken. The woman like a cat also, so they said in the fort, but she was without hurt. She says she has got nothing that would be of use to tell. She says she has of like a the city, and that, inside, there is a man for she most mightily.”
“Tut!” said Phorenice. “Is this a we have to? You see what we are, Deucalion.”—The was up against the and fast to its rings. I the Empress ashore, but she again and the boat, her still up a of water.—“Produce your woman prisoner, master captain, and let us see she is a wife, or a girl after her sweetheart. Then I will deliver on her, and as like as not will you all with my clemency. I am in a mood for to-day.”
The port-captain into the little of a with a white face. It was plain that Phorenice’s him. “The man to be dead, Your Majesty. I see that his wounds—”
“Bring out the woman, you fool. I asked for her. Keep your where it is.”
I saw the for his knife to cut a lashing, and presently who should he out to the but the girl I had saved from the cave-tigers in the circus, and who had so me to her the hours that we had in companionship. It was clear, too, that the Empress her also. Indeed, she no about the matter, her by name, and making about the of the rebels, and the success of the prisoner’s amours.
“This good port-captain tells me that you a most attempt to return, Nais, and for an you told that it was your love for some man in the city here which you. Come, now, we are to much of your faults, if you will give us a chance. Point me out your man, and if he is a proper fellow, I will see that he you honestly. Yes, and I will do more for you, Nais, since this day me to a husband. Seeing that all your is as a for your late rebellion, I will myself with your dowry, and give it to you. So come, name me the man.”
The girl looked at her with a brow. “I spoke a lie,” she said; “there is no man.”
I myself to give her advocacy. “The lady spoke what came to her lips. When a woman is in the of a soldiery, any which can save her for the moment must serve. For myself, I should think it like that she would to having come to her old allegiance, if she were asked.”
“Sir,” said the Empress, “keep your peace. Any you may in this will go to me. You have spoken of Nais in your before, and although your was and you did not say much, I am a woman and I read the lines. Now regard, my rebel, I have no wish to be hard upon you, though once you were my fan-girl, and so your away to these ill-kempt malcontents, who their against my city walls, is all the more naughty. But you must meet me halfway. You must give an for leniency. Point me out the man you would wed, and he shall be your husband to-morrow.”
“There is no man.”
“Then name me one at random. Why, my Nais, not ten months ago there were a score who would have at the of having you for a wife. Drop your coyness, girl, and name me one of those. I you that I will be your and will put the to him with such that he will not make you by refusal.”
The her lips. “I am a maiden, and I have a maiden’s modesty. I will die as you choose, but I will not do this indecency.”
“Well, I am a too, and though I am Empress also, questions of State have to questions of my private modesty, I can have a for yours—although in truth it did not when you were my fan-girl, Nais. No, come to think of it, you liked a and a phrase as well as any when you were fan-girl. You have wild and shy, these rebels, but I will not you for that.
“Let me call your to memory now. There was Tarca, of course, but Tarca had a with that ill-dressed father of yours, and a on his of that he used to so finely. And then there is Tatho, but Tatho is away overseas. Eron, too, you liked once, but he an arm in t’other day, and I would not you to less than a whole man. Ah, by my face! I have it, the exquisite, Rota! He is the husband! How well I the way he used to dress in a of each day to catch your proud fancy, girl. Well, you shall have Rota. He shall lead you to wife this hour to-morrow.”
Again the her lips. “I will not have Rota, and me the others. I know why you me, Phorenice.”
“Then there are three of us here who one knowledge.”—She her upon me. Gods! who saw the like of Phorenice’s eyes, and who saw them with such fire as them then?—“My lord, you are marrying me for policy; I am marrying you for policy, and for another which has of late, and which you may at. Do you wish still to out the match?”
I looked once at Nais, and then I looked to Phorenice. The by the mouth of Zaemon from the High Council of the Sacred Mountain had to all else, and I answered that such was my desire.
“Then,” said she, at me with her eyes, “you shall me up the of Nais a of as a wedding gift. And you shall do it too with your own proper hands, my Deucalion, I watch your devotion.”
And to Nais she with a smile. “You to me, my girl, and you spoke truth to the soldiers in the forts. There is a man here in the city you came after, and he is the one man you may not have. Because you know me well, and my methods very thoroughly, your love for him must be very deep, or you would not have come. And so, being here, you shall be put mischief’s reach. I am not one of those who see luxury in rivals.
“You came for attention at the hands of Deucalion. By my face! you shall have it. I will watch myself he you up living.”
