“If you flatter yourself it matters a rap to me whom you marry, you are letting conceit run away with you.”
“Listen,” I said. “I did not ask you here to make foolish speeches which seem largely beyond my comprehension. I asked you to help me do a service to one of your own blood-kin.”
She stared at me wonderingly. “I do not understand.”
“It rests largely with you as to whether Nais dies to-morrow, or whether she is thrown into a sleep from which she may waken on some later and more happy day.”
“Nais!” she gasped. “My twin, Nais? She is not here. She is out in the camp with those nasty rebels who bite against the city walls, if, indeed, still she lives.”
“Nais, your sister is near us in the royal pyramid this minute, and under guard, though where I do not know.” And with that I told her all that had passed since the girl was brought up a prisoner in the galley of that foolish, fawning captain of the port. “The Empress has decreed that Nais shall be buried alive under a throne of granite which I am to build for her to-morrow, and buried she will assuredly be. Yet I have a kindness for Nais, which you may guess at if you choose, and I am minded to send her into a sleep such as only we higher priests know of, from which at some future day she may possibly awaken.”
“So it is Nais; and not Phorenice, and not—not any other?”
“Yes; it is Nais. I marry the Empress because Zaemon, who is mouthpiece to the High Council of the Priests, has ordered it, for the good of Atlantis. But my inwards remain still cold towards her.”
“Almost I hate poor Nais already.”
“Your vengeance would be easy. Do not tell me where she is gaoled, and I shall not dare to ask. Even to give Nais a further span of life I cannot risk making inquiries for her cell, when there is a chance that those who tell me might carry news to the Empress, and so cause more trouble for this poor Atlantis.”