“I have a life to give,” said Tanil.
“To give! You have a life to lose!”
“Take it, Cumac,” said he.
The King sprang up and seized Tanil by the beard, rocking him, and shouting through his gritting teeth: “Ay, bonds should be kept—should they not?—in truth and trust—should they not?”
Then he flung from him and went wailing in misery, swinging his hands, and raging to and fro, up and down.
“Did she not come to me, come to me? Was it not agreed? Bonds and again bonds! Yet when I woo her she denies me still. O, honesty in petticoats is a saint with a devil’s claw. The bitter virginal thing turned her wild heart to this piece of cloven honour. Bonds, more bonds! Spare me these supple bonds! O, you spread cunning nets, but what fowler ever thrived in his own snare? Did she not come to me? Was it not agreed?”
Suddenly he stopped and made a sign through a casement. “Is all ready?”
“Ay,” cried a voice.
“Now I will make an end,” said King Cumac. “Prop them against the casements.” They carried Tanil to a casement on his right hand, and Fax to a casement on his left hand. Tanil saw Flaune standing in the palace garden amid a troop of Ethiopians, each with a green turban and red shoes and a tunic coloured like a stone, but she half-clad with only black pantaloons, and her long dark locks flowing. And Fax saw Yali in fetters amid another troop of black soldiers.
Again a sigh from the King; two great swords flashed, and Tanil, at one casement, saw the head of Flaune turn over backwards and topple to the ground, her body falling after with a great swathe of shorn tresses floating over it. Fax at the other casement saw Yali die, screaming a long cry that it seemed would never end. Tanil swayed at the casement.