Olga looked upon the splendid figure of the Sultan as he stood before her, his athletic form dilated and his face glorified by the passion of religious fervour that was burning within him, and as she did so a new light dawned upon her. She saw that this strong, fiery soul might some day conquer even hers, and fuse it into itself.
It would be an unholy union, a love bought with apostasy from her faith and sealed with treachery to her people and the trust that she had inherited from her forefathers; but what were apostasy and treachery to her now that the love she had stained her soul with blood and untold crime to win was lost to her for ever?
Earthly pomp and power, the pomp of imperial rule and the power of life and death, of happiness and misery, over millions of her fellow-creatures were well worth living for, and with them might come love again, or if not love, then passion, fierce and all-consuming, for this one king of earth who dared to be a king in fact as well as in name, and then—Before she could make any reply to the Sultan’s words, the slow, measured tones of the Vizier sounded again, saying—
“If I may speak again, Majesties”—
“Say on, good Musa!” said the Sultan, “for so far thou hast spoken the words of wisdom.”
“I would say,” continued the old man, “that even as the winged steed Alborak bore the Prophet from earth to the Seventh Heaven, so may it be written that the winged ship of Tsarina Olga shall bear thee, my Master, into that Paradise of love which so far thou hast sought and not found.”
“What say you, well-named Syren of the Skies, to that?” said Khalid, taking a step towards the couch on which Olga was sitting, and making a half-appealing gesture with both his hands.
She rose to her feet and faced him. One look into his passion-lighted eyes told her that the victory was already won, and that strength could now give place to softness. She dropped her eyes before his burning gaze, and, crossing her hands upon her bosom with a pretty semblance of submission, said, in a low, sweet tone that he heard now for the first time—
“All things are possible, and if this be possible, then more than Cleopatra lost for Antony I will win for you, and you shall reign sole Cæsar of a subject world. As for me, when that comes to pass, let it be to me as it shall seem good in the eyes of my lord the King!”
And so saying she bowed slightly before him and turned and passed out of the saloon, seeing the vision of him whom she had loved in vain through the mist of tears which rose in that instant to her eyes.