Amulon laughed. "Alma! he is already a doomed man."
"My father shall carry my case before the king!" she cried in a panic.
"Why did the king have you brought here? To grace the train of Otalitza, when there are a hundred women fighting for the place you occupy? Why, I say, except at my request? If you spurn me, the king will claim you. Take your choice."
Seeing the hopelessness of her case, woman's wit, which has been her chief weapon since the world began, came to her rescue. She slipped up her arms and encircled his head, kissing his handsome, bruised-looking lips.
"Amulon," she whispered, "I am not a slave to be coerced. What I do, I must do of my own free will, without force."
"You are right," he said, won by her speedy capitulation. He instantly freed her, for he was as generous as he was passionate.
"Your lips are like the desert and your brow is fevered. See, I will bath it in the fountain." She darted forward, and as he stumbled after her and fell headlong on the pavement, she did not stop to look back, but kept right on.
* * * * *
The breeze that precedes the dawn was stirring when a white-robed figure stole out on the roof garden of the palace. She started back when, on turning a corner, she was confronted by a man muffled in a long cloak.
"Zara!"