I.
THE PLOT.
Jared, as he reclined on the roof-garden, looked out over the city basking in the afternoon light. Although it was yet warm, he had stumbled out into the open air from his siesta couch where he had smothered and tried in vain to sleep during the sultry afternoon. There was a discontented look in his eyes as his gaze wandered over the vast extent of the roofs, the palms silhouetted against a pastel sky, to the crystalline peaks in the distance crowned with eternal snow. The nearby stone mansions were resplendent in red-tiled roofs, sun-burnished walls, and purple shadows, while an occasional opening afforded a glimpse of a green courtyard or paved street. Nor could the beauty of his own aerial gardens, a riot of color, with subtile perfume of violets and verbenas, win him from his trouble. The laughter of girls floated up from the pool below, where his daughter Aida with her women, was disporting herself in the water. Unlike less active women, who let an indented pillow in a hammock tell the story of the afternoon's exertions, she preferred violent swimming in the humid plunge.
Wearily he leaned back, as if he found the cushions hard for his emaciated limbs. Jared had once been ruler over this vast domain, and he who has tasted power cannot soon forget the flavor. Lusting for the kingdom, he had dispossessed his old father, King Omer, but his younger brothers had risen up and wrested it from his greedy grasp. They defeated him in open battle, took him captive, and Jared only bought his freedom with the promise that he would never go to war again. After that he found life, shorn of its glory, but a worthless thing.
Evening is unknown in the tropics, for night descends swiftly, shrouding the earth in a black pall. Tonight, for a transitory period, a crescent moon hung in a sapphire sky, a breeze sprang up from the sea, and the city shook off its lethargy. A hum arose as its inhabitants prepared for the traffic and activity of the night. Lights sprang out. A step on the stair and a rustling of the leaves made the man turn to behold the laughing face of Aida, like a lily on its stem above a bed of narcissus.
"Come here to me, daughter," he said fondly, his face lighting up.
She shook out her mane of black hair, which was still wet, and went toward him. Her shoulders and arms emerged like snow from her loose-fitting, black gown, and the dead pallor of her face was relieved only by the scarlet streak of her lips. Her gray eyes were so heavily shrouded that they appeared black. As she knelt before him, her father leaned forward and touched her forehead with his lips.
"Father," she murmured, "it is eating my heart out to see you always so sad."
"I fear I am but a broken shell from which the life has departed," he lamented.
"Can't you shake this depression off?"
"I have tried," he sighed.
"I know it. You will never be yourself again until you are restored to your old place. The throne is yours by right. You are a younger man than Omer, and can manage the affairs of the nation better. You must be king."
"How?" he raised his eyebrows.
As she had watched her father waste away, gnawed by festering ambition, Aida had realized that something must be done or he would die. So she had evolved a plan.
"Listen," she glanced hastily around and lowered her voice. "There is only one thing between you and your lawful right to the throne."
"My father!"
"Then remove it," she hissed.
"You mean kill the king!" He started as if she had surprised his own guilty thought.
"Why not?"
"It is not for a son to spill his father's blood."
"Get someone else to do it."
"And who, in all the realm of the Jaredites would dare?"
"Only one that I know of. The dark and moody Akish could if he wanted to, for he controls the secret societies."
"True," he ruminated, "but he is a friend of Omer's."
"Every man has his price."
"What would his be?" he shrugged his shoulders. "The coffers of Akish are bursting with gold now."
"Tempt him with something else."
Jared scowled. What office in the kingdom could he offer for such a crime?
Aida broke in on his reflections. "Send for him here, and I will dance before him, and when he covets me, say, 'Bring hither the head of Omer, the king, and I will give you my daughter for wife.'"
Fond father that he was Jared never doubted but what Akish would want Aida, but the thoughts of bartering her shot a pang through his heart. He would sacrifice his aged father for his soul's desire, but to give up his daughter, that was another thing.
After a silence, he said gently, "Have you thought, my child, that after this is accomplished there must come a day of reckoning?"
"What of it?"
"You are willing to pay the price?"
"Certainly," then hurriedly as the color crept into her face, "I am sick of these effeminate nobles with their perfumed locks, and if I am to have a master it must be one worth obeying. Akish is such a man."
As he watched her with half-closed lids, her father thought that it must be a strong trainer indeed to hold such a splendid tigress in leash; but when he thought of the cruel Akish, his heart was full of misgiving.