“I think that you had better tell him,” he said in English. “Our situation is desperate. Probably in a few hours he will know us to be impostors; indeed, he guesses it already. It is better that he should learn the truth from our own lips. The man is honest; moreover, he owes his life to us, though it is true that were it not for us he would never have been in danger of his life. Now we must trust him and take our chance; if we make a mistake, it does not greatly matter—we have made so many already.”
Juanna bowed her head and thought awhile, then she lifted it and spoke.
“Olfan,” she said, “are we alone? That which I have to say must be overheard by none.”
“We are alone, Queen,” he answered, glancing round, “but these walls have ears.”
“Olfan, draw near.”
He obeyed, and leaning forward she spoke to him almost in a whisper, while the others clustered round to hear her words.
“You must call me Queen no more,” she said in a voice broken with humiliation. “I am no goddess, I am but a mortal woman, and this man,” and she pointed to Otter, “is no god, he is only a black dwarf.”
She paused, watching the effect of her words. An expression of astonishment swept across the king’s face, but it was her boldness rather than the purport of her speech that caused it. Then he smiled.
“Perhaps I have guessed as much,” he answered. “And yet I must still call you by that name, seeing that you are the queen of all women, for say, where is there another so lovely, so brave, or so great? Here at least there are none,” and he bowed before her with a stately courtesy that would have become any European gentleman.
Now it was Leonard’s turn to look astonished. There was nothing in the king’s words to which he could take objection, and yet he did not like their tone; it was too full of admiration. Moreover it seemed to him that Olfan was not in the least disappointed to discover as a fact that Juanna was only a woman—a supposition which was fully established by his next speech.