The Lost Continent by Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne (e novels to read .txt) 📗
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“Let me call your favourites to memory now. There was Tarca, of course, but Tarca had a difference with that ill-dressed father of yours, and wears a leprosy on half his face instead of that beard he used to trim so finely. And then there is Tatho, but Tatho is away overseas. Eron, too, you liked once, but he lost an arm in fighting t’other day, and I would not marry you to less than a whole man. Ah, by my face! I have it, the dainty exquisite, Rota! He is the husband! How well I remember the way he used to dress in a change of garb each day to catch your proud fancy, girl. Well, you shall have Rota. He shall lead you to wife before this hour to-morrow.”
Again the prisoner moistened her lips. “I will not have Rota, and spare me the others. I know why you mock me, Phorenice.”
“Then there are three of us here who share one knowledge.”—She turned her eyes upon me. Gods! who ever saw the like of Phorenice’s eyes, and who ever saw them lit with such fire as burned within them then?—“My lord, you are marrying me for policy; I am marrying you for policy, and for another reason which has grown stronger of late, and which you may guess at. Do you wish still to carry out the match?”
I looked once at Nais, and then I looked steadily back to Phorenice. The command given by the mouth of Zaemon from the High Council of the Sacred Mountain had to outweigh all else, and I answered that such was my desire.
“Then,” said she, glowering at me with her eyes, “you shall build me up the pretty body of Nais beneath a throne of granite as a wedding gift. And you shall do it too with your own proper hands, my Deucalion, whilst I watch your devotion.”
And to Nais she turned with a cruel smile. “You lied to me, my girl, and you spoke truth to the soldiers in the harbour 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 beyond mischief’s reach. I am not one of those who see luxury in fostering rivals.
“You came for attention at the hands of Deucalion. By my face! you shall have it. I will watch myself whilst he builds you up living.”
11. AN AFFAIR WITH THE BARBAROUS FISHERS
So this mighty Empress chose to be jealous of a mere woman prisoner!
Now my mind has been trained to work with a soldierly quickness in these moments of stress, and I decided on my proper course on the instant the words had left her lips. I was sacrificing myself for Atlantis by order of the High Council of the Priests, and, if needful, Nais must be sacrificed also, although in the same flash a scheme came to me for saving her.
So I bowed gravely before the Empress, and said I, “In this, and in all other things where a mere human hand is potent, I will carry out your wishes, Phorenice.” And she on her part patted my arm, and fresh waves of feeling welled up from the depths of her wondrous eyes. Surely the Gods won for her half her schemes and half her battles when they gave Phorenice her shape, and her voice, and the matters which lay within the outlines of her face.
By this time the merchants, and the other dwellers adjacent to this part of the harbour, where the royal quay stands, had come down, offering changes of raiment, and houses to retire into. Phorenice was all graciousness, and though it was little enough I cared for mere wetness of my coat, still that part of the harbour into which we had been thrown by the mammoth was not over savoury, and I was glad enough to follow her example. For myself, I said no further word to Nais, and refrained even from giving her a glance of farewell. But a small sop like this was no meal for Phorenice, and she gave the port-captain strict orders for the guarding of his prisoner before she left him.
At the house into which I was ushered they gave me a bath, and I eased my host of the plainest garment in his store, and he was pleased enough at getting off so cheaply. But I had an hour to spend outside on the pavement listening to the distant din of bombardment before Phorenice came out to me again, and I could not help feeling some grim amusement at the face of the merchant who followed. The fellow was clearly ruined. He had a store of jewels and gauds of the most costly kind, which were only in fraction his own, seeing that he had bought them (as the custom is) in partnership with other merchants. These had pleased Phorenice’s eye, and so she had taken all and disposed them on her person.
“Are they not pretty?” said she, showing them to me. “See how they flash under the sun. I am quite glad now, Deucalion, that the mammoth gave us that furious ride and that spill, since it has brought me such a bonny present. You may tell the fellow here that some day when he has earned some more, I will come and be his guest again. Ah! They have brought us litters, I see. Well, send one away and do you share mine with me, sir. We must play at being lovers to-day, even if love is a matter which will come to us both with more certainty to-morrow. No; do not order more bearers. My own slaves will carry us handily enough. I am glad you are not one of your gross, overfed men, Deucalion. I am small and slim myself, and I do not want to be husbanded by a man who will overshadow me.”
“Back to the royal pyramid?” I asked.
“No, nor to the walls. I neither wish to fight nor to sit as Empress to-day, sir. As I have told you before, it is my whim to be Phorenice, the maiden, for a few hours, and if some one I wot of would woo me now, as other maidens are wooed, I should esteem it a luxury. Bid the slaves carry us round the harbour’s rim, and give word to these starers that, if they follow, I will call down fire upon them as I did upon the sacrifice.”
Now, I had seen something of the unruliness of the streets myself, and I had gathered a hint also from the officer at the gate of the royal pyramid that night of Phorenice’s welcoming banquet. But as whatever there was in the matter must be common knowledge to the Empress, I did not bring it to her memory then. So I dismissed the guard which had come up, and drove away with a few sharp words the throng of gaping sightseers who always, silly creatures, must needs come to stare at their betters; and then I sat in the litter in the place where I was invited, and the bearers put their heads to the pole.
They swung away with us along the wide pavement which runs between the
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