Ishtar could not repress a sense of triumph in the consciousness of her power—a power that should serve to baffle the gaoler even now, and unlock the prison door.
His eyes followed her with fond glances, while she moved to the table and filled a wine-cup to the brim. It must have been a colder nature than his that could resist the winning grace with which she offered him to drink.
"My lord will not refuse to pledge his handmaid," said she, "in token of forgiveness and good-will?"
He emptied the cup at a draught; for indeed to this impulsive young prince there was a keen zest in every phase of luxury and indulgence: the lust of the eye, the pleasures of the senses, feast and frolic, wine and women—he loved them all too well. It was the strongest vintage of the South, and succeeding his previous potations, its effects were apparent at once. His cheek paled, his glance wandered, there came a thickness in his speech, while he sank among shawls and cushions, inviting Ishtar to sit beside him on the couch. Though it sickened her, she suffered him to caress her hands, her arms, the fragrant wealth of her flowing hair. Once more she filled for him. Once more he drank to her beauty, her promotion, her coming happiness.
She had ceased to fear him now; for the strong wine, though it blazed in his eyes and inflamed his senses, fastened his limbs, like a chain of iron, to the couch.
Stretching his arms back to embrace her with the caressing gesture of a child, he looked up in her face, betraying even more of mirth than either love or longing in his own.
She watched him, as the physician watches the sick man about to die; and though an icy cold crept over her, she never smiled more sweetly than while she took his beautiful head in her hands and pillowed it on her own beating heart.
In that fair smooth bosom thoughts of agony and horror were lurking, as there are foul monsters and hideous secrets, wrecks and remnants and dead men's bones, hidden beneath the smiling surface of the sea. She longed for the wine to work its office—all the more wildly that he wore a dagger in his girdle—and she prayed with her whole heart she might not be driven to use that.
Softly, sweetly, she sang him a drowsy lullaby, not a quiver on her lip nor tremble in her voice, while she soothed him with tender care, like a mother hushing off her child.
"Sleep, my love, sleep; rest, my love, rest;
Dieth the moan of the wind in the tree,
Foldeth her pinions the bird in her nest,
Sinketh the sun to his bed in the sea.
Sleep, sleep—lull'd on my breast,
Tossing and troubled, and thinking of me.