The dance was ended. The spectators broke into wild applause. Aida staggered toward the shade of the orange trees, and not realizing what he did, Akish plunged after her. He reached her just as she swayed and fell, with utter exhaustion, on his outstretched arm.
III.
FRUITION.
Lured on by the bait of Aida, Akish called the secret societies together and started his diabolical machinations, but the Lord warned Omer, in a dream, of his impending danger, with the result that the old king gathered his household together and departed secretly to the land of Ablom, where he pitched his tents by the sea-shore. Jared was anointed king by the hand of wickedness, and at the same time Akish was wedded to Aida.
If Jared loved power, Akish did more so, and his vaulting ambition led to the throne itself. He fretted inwardly; and, because such a nature must be active in evil, he began to lay his subtle plans to consummate his end. He must get Jared out of the way. By reason of his control of the secret organizations, whose members were bound by dread oaths, he was already a more influential man than the king. His marriage to Jared's daughter strengthened his position. Strangely enough, the thing that should have deterred him from the murder, consideration for his wife, confirmed his dire decision. Akish loved Aida as much as a nature of his kind is capable of, but mingled with it was a desire to domineer. He derived pleasure from torturing the beloved object. During their brief married life, he had been afforded some rare flashes of her temper, and he now saw a chance to quell the rebellion in her, and crush it with one blow.
The arch conspirator sent out his band of assassins to kill King Jared as he sat upon the throne, and as they departed he called after the bullies, "That I may know that you have done your work well, bring me a token, bring me the head of the king," and he smiled grimly to think that the same fate that Jared had decreed for his father, should now be meted out to him.
Akish did not know what fear was, but he could ill brook delay. He sat in his great stone chamber and essayed a dozen tasks only to throw them aside and listen impatiently, as the afternoon lengthened into night. When the heavy tread of his accomplices resounded in the corridor, he could have shouted with relief.
"How goes it?" he questioned sharply, as the men filed into the room.
"It is done," answered Simon.
"How?"