It was nine o'clock of a morning—the morning of the third day of the Maeronican month of Kanar, corresponding to the fifteenth of November; or, to reverse the seasons to the terms of our northern clime, the sixteenth of May. A man who bore a heavy heart within his golden armor faced a white-faced maid in the ancient audience-hall of the dead king Bel-Tisam.
"Now am I in my heart almost a traitor to my king and land, lady," Brunar said. "For I have almost wished that your lover might prevail over Bel-Ar and save you. But the day has come and the time is at hand, and Ruthar is still without the walls. Would that I might save you, lady—I think that to do so I would willingly give my life. But Shamar's servants have watched this place by day and by night. It cannot be. Already they wait for you without the doors to lead you to the temple."
For an instant the girl's eyes swam with terror. She gazed hither and yon about the hall like a hunted thing. Then the heritage of her northern race came to her aid and saved her from collapse.
Bravely she faced and spoke to the captain.
She stepped to the cradle of the little Patrymion and kissed the babe.
"I am ready," she said, then.
At the doors of the prison a chariot waited, and with it were four of the white-robed priests of Shamar. The girl was lifted into the car. The charioteer drove up the side avenue of Chedar's Flight, past the Place of Games, now standing empty and silent, to the grounds of the Temple of the Sun. They saw many armed men in the street as they passed along. As they entered the gateway of the temple grounds they heard a dull booming that beat up with the wind from the south, where Ruthar hammered at the Mazanion gates.
The priests carried the girl up the hundred white marble steps to the western entrance to the temple and through the splendid arch of a doorway that was fifty feet from pave to vault. Within all was dim twilight, except in the mighty dome, two hundred feet aloft. There it was light, indeed.
At the doorway the party halted, and two soldiers shackled Rose with fetters of heavy gold at her wrists and ankles. Around her waist they set a girdle of the same yellow metal, to which chains were attached. That done, they placed a gag in her mouth and led her into the temple.