"Your Majesty," she mumbled, pointing with her crutch to a glowing ember, one of several detached from the rest. "You once waged war for seven years on a stretch, yet the number of Prussians you killed, added to that of your own people that perished in battle and by disease, may be expressed in six noughts. And," turning to other debris, "your record, Catherine of Russia, is quite as inadequate as Maria Theresa's compared with the prospects for manslaughter held out by this young lady!"
After an ominous silence: "Sheba, Elizabeth, Semiramis, aye, ye furies of the White Terror who dined off Lamballe's liver, miserable failures all of you——" She did not finish, but the end of her crutch continued to poke fire and ashes, separating and piling up, moving and sweeping along larger and again smaller quantities like figures on a chessboard.
She seemed dissatisfied, and as the minutes passed, her speech, or rather her mumbling, became more and more disconnected. Suddenly she drew her stick across the piles, levelling the lot. "No use," she cried, turning round and addressing me; "I can't get anything out of them. Are they holding back, or is Zara losing her cunning? But I will know," she added fiercely. "Who art thou, girl?"
I was speechless with fright, and all engrossed with her combinations as Zara was, she scarce noticed my silence and lumbered on regardless. Maybe, too, no reply was expected.
"Not the War Lord's wife," she mused. "Augusta is the mother of many children, they tell me, nor——." (I didn't catch the rest, it was a jumble of mumblings.)
After she became articulate again, I heard her say: "Oceans of blood have been poured out. But what am I saying? She is only a child."
Then out of her black silk mantle she drew a pack of cards, threw them on the table, and, resting her right hand heavily on the crutch, studied the pasteboards anxiously for a while.
"Cursed mystery," she whispered. Then to the bird: "Jezebel, help!"
The black thing hopped on the table and scattered the cards with his feet. Then he picked up one with his beak and presented it to his mistress.
"A town in flames," said Zara after scrutiny.