“So!” she exclaimed, “did I not tell you that, east or west or north or south, there is some other woman?”
“There was once, Augusta, quite a thousand years ago or more, and there may be again now, or a thousand years hence. That is what I am trying to find out. You say the work is Egyptian. Augusta, at your convenience, will you be pleased to make another captain in my place? I would visit Egypt.”
“If you leave Byzantium without express permission under my own hand—not the Emperor’s or anybody else’s hand; mine, I say—and are caught, your eyes shall be put out as a deserter!” she said savagely.
“As the Augusta pleases,” I answered, saluting.
“Olaf,” she went on in a more gentle voice, “you are clearly mad; but, to tell truth, you are also a madman who pleases me, since I weary of the rogues and lick-spittles who call themselves sane in Byzantium. Why, there’s not a man in all the city who would dare to speak to me as you have spoken to-night, and like that breeze from the sea, it is refreshing. Lend me that necklace, Olaf, till to-morrow morning. I want to examine it in the lamplight, and I swear to you that I will not take it from you or play you any tricks about it.”
“Will you promise not to wear it, Augusta?”
“Of course. Is it likely that I should wish to wear it on my bare breast after it has been rubbing against your soiled armour?”
Without another word I unhooked the necklace and handed it to her. She ran to a little distance, and, with one of those swift movements that were common to her, fastened it about her own neck. Then she returned, and threw the great strings of pearls, which she had removed to make place for it, over my head.
“Now have you found the woman of that dream, Olaf?” she asked, turning herself about in the moonlight.
I shook my head and answered: