“And thou, Macumazahn, I have heard of what thou didst; thou art brave, and hast a loyal heart. And the black one too, ah, he was a man. I would fain have seen him hurl Nasta from the stairway.”
“Thou art a strange woman, Sorais,” I said; “I pray thee now plead with the Queen Nyleptha, that perchance she may show mercy unto thee.”
She laughed out loud. “I plead for mercy!” she said and at that moment the Queen entered, accompanied by Sir Henry and Good, and took her seat with an impassive face. As for poor Good, he looked intensely ill at ease.
“Greeting, Sorais!” said Nyleptha, after a short pause. “Thou hast rent the kingdom like a rag, thou hast put thousands of my people to the sword, thou hast twice basely plotted to destroy my life by murder, thou hast sworn to slay my lord and his companions and to hurl me from the Stairway. What hast thou to say why thou shouldst not die? Speak, O Sorais!”
“Methinks my sister the Queen hath forgotten the chief count of the indictment,” answered Sorais in her slow musical tones. “It runs thus: ‘Thou didst strive to win the love of my lord Incubu.’ It is for this crime that my sister will slay me, not because I levied war. It is perchance happy for thee, Nyleptha, that I fixed my mind upon his love too late.
“Listen,” she went on, raising her voice. “I have nought to say save that I would I had won instead of lost. Do thou with me even as thou wilt, O Queen, and let my lord the King there” (pointing to Sir Henry)—“for now will he be King—carry out the sentence, as it is meet he should, for as he is the beginning of the evil, let him also be the end.” And she drew herself up and shot one angry glance at him from her deep fringed eyes, and then began to toy with her spear.
Sir Henry bent towards Nyleptha and whispered something that I could not catch, and then the Queen spoke.
“Sorais, ever have I been a good sister to thee. When our father died, and there was much talk in the land as to whether thou shouldst sit upon the throne with me, I being the elder, I gave my voice for thee and said, ‘Nay, let her sit. She is twin with me; we were born at a birth; wherefore should the one be preferred before the other?’ And so has it ever been “twixt thee and me, my sister. But now thou knowest in what sort thou hast repaid me, but I have prevailed, and thy life is forfeit, Sorais. And yet art thou my sister, born at a birth with me, and we played together when we were little and loved each other much, and at night we slept in the same cot with our arms each around the other’s neck, and therefore even now does my heart go out to thee, Sorais.
“But not for that would I spare thy life, for thy offence has been too heavy; it doth drag down the wide wings of my mercy even to the ground. Also, while thou dost live the land will never be at peace.
“Yet shalt thou not die, Sorais, because my dear lord here hath begged thy life of me as a boon; therefore as a boon and as a marriage gift give I it to him, to do with even as he wills, knowing that, though thou dost love him, he loves thee not, Sorais, for all thy beauty. Nay, though thou art lovely as the night in all her stars, O Lady of the Night, yet it is me his wife whom he loves, and not thee, and therefore do I give thy life to him.”