Isma reclined in the after part of the broad, low seat which ran round the inside, with one hand resting lightly upon a little silver lever which could be used for working the rudder-fan, in addition to the tiller-ropes, which she held in her hands while standing up. Alma sat almost upright amidships, with one hand clasped on the rail of polished satin-wood which ran round the well of the boat, her head turned away from Isma and her eyes fixed upon two dim points of light far away to the southward, which marked the position of the two moonlit, snowy peaks which guarded the southern confines of the valley.
For several minutes they proceeded thus in silence, which neither seemed inclined to break. At length Isma looked up at a planet that was shining redly over the northern mountains, and, possessed by a sudden inspiration, said—
“Look, Alma, there is Mars returning to our skies!”
“Yes,” said Alma, turning round and gazing from beneath her slightly-frowning brows at the ruddy planet; “it is a fitting time for him to come back now that, after all these years of peace and happiness, human wickedness and ambition have brought the curse of war back again on earth.”
“Yes,” said Isma. “If there were anything in what the old astrologers used to say we could look upon his rising as an omen. And yet we have very little reason surely for taking as an emblem of war a world in which wars have been unheard of for thousands of years.”
“I wonder when that time will come on earth?” said Alma bitterly. “If ever it does! We terrestrials seem to be too hopelessly wicked and foolish for such wisdom as that.
“Mankind will never have a fairer opportunity of working out its redemption than it had after the Terror, and yet here, after four generations of peaceful happiness and prosperity, the wickedness of one woman is able to set the world ablaze again. Our forefathers were wise, but they would have been wiser still if they had stamped that vile brood out utterly. Their evil blood has been the one drop of venom that has poisoned the whole world’s cup of happiness!”
As Alma spoke these last words her grey eyes grew dark with sudden passion under her straight-drawn brows. Her breast heaved with a sudden wave of emotion, and the sentences came quickly and fiercely from the lips which Isma had never heard speak in anger before.
“Yes,” she replied, rather sadly than angrily, “perhaps it would have been better for the world if they had done so, or, at anyrate, if they had shut them up for life, as they did the criminals and the insane in the middle of the last century. But we must remember, even in our own sorrow and anger, that this Olga Romanoff is in her way not altogether unlike our own Angel was in hers.”
“Surely you’re speaking sacrilege now!” interrupted Alma. “How can the evil be like the good under any circumstances?”