Fate willed that it should be the last time that the seven friends should sit at the same table.
When the meal was ended, Oleric told simply and briefly of the judgment of Bel-Ar, holding back nothing.
For a moment, silence was his answer. Then Zenas Wright brought his jaws together with a snap.
"What! Me a scullion in that barbarian's greasy kitchen!" he barked. "Why not nursemaid to the royal brats?" Then Zenas groaned as his anger was swallowed in the realization of what was to befall the friends he whom had come to love so well.
With his topaz eyes ablaze, Polaris Janess sprang up from the table and stood over the captain.
"You, Oleric, who call yourself my friend, why did you not interpret this to us while we were in the hall yonder?" he asked quietly. "Then had this kingdom been kingless." He glanced down at his sinewy hands. Suddenly he bent over and snatched the captain's sword from its sheath. So he, who had seen so much of fighting, made ready to fight again, and for the last time. For what else was left him but to give his life for his lady and go to his appointed place?
"Of those who come to take us, some at least shall go a long journey with us," he said as he toyed with the heavy blade.
Everson and Brooks, picked men who had sailed the seas for Uncle Sam, nodded their heads, saying nothing. There have been traditions in that service of which they were officers. When their time came they would uphold them.
White and straight, the Lady Memene stood up from the table and fixed her glorious eyes upon the Sardanian king. She plucked from the bosom of her gown a small, keen dagger, a blade of ilium, which a certain Kard the Smith had forged for her in far-away Sardanes. She reached the weapon across the table and into the hands of Minos.
"If I understand the words of this man aright, death waiteth," she said in the ancient Greek of her native land. "Memene prefers it at thy hands, O king of mine. Slay thou me and—and the unborn king, Minos." Her lips trembled pitifully, and her voice broke. Then she became hard again, and with a fire in her eyes. "Join thou then with our good brother here, and slay, and slay, and slay—for this is an evil land. And begin with this man whom we saved from the sea, and who is evil, also. See! He smileth, while we are about to die."