Both rooms were very simply furnished. A straw couch in the inner room, and two chairs, a table, and a row of keys upon the walls in the outer room, was almost all that they contained.
Upon the wooden bench in the window abovementioned, sat, day and night--her eyes fixed upon the hole in the wall, through which alone light and air could penetrate to the King's prison--a silent and thoughtful woman.
It was Rauthgundis. Her eyes never left the little chink in the wall, "For," she said to herself, "thither turn all my thoughts--there, where his eyes too are ever fixed."
Even when she spoke to her companion, Wachis, or to the gaoler, she never turned her eyes away. It seemed as if she thought that her mere look could guard the prisoner from every danger.
On the day of which we speak she had sat thus for a long time.
It was evening. Dark and threatening the massive tower rose into the sky, casting a broad shadow over the court and the left wing of the palace.
"Thanks, O Heavenly Father," murmured Rauthgundis; "even the strokes of fate have led to good. If, as I once intended, I had gone to my father upon the High Arn, I should never have heard of all the misery here. Or far too late. But I could not bear to forsake the last resting-place of my child near our home. The last, indeed, I was obliged to leave, for how could I know that she, his Queen, would not come there? I dwelt in the woods near Fæsulæ, and when news came of failure, and one misfortune followed another; when the Persians burnt our house, and I saw the flames from my hiding-place; it was too late to escape to my father. All the roads were blocked, and the Italians delivered all whom they found with yellow hair into the hands of the Massagetæ. No way was open but the road here--to the city where I had ever refused to go as his wife. I came like a fugitive beggar. Wachis, the slave, now the freedman, and Wallada, our horse, alone remained faithful to me. But--forced by God's hand to come, whether I would or not--I found that it was only that I might save him--deliver him from the shameful treachery of his wife, and out of the hands of his enemies! I thank Thee, O God, for this Thy mercy!"
Her attention was attracted by the rattling of the iron gate opposite.
A man with a light came through it across the court, and now entered the ante-room. It was the old gaoler.
"Well? Speak! cried Rauthgundis, leaving her seat and hurrying to him.