“It is you who speak in riddles now,” she retorted, her voice quivering with emotion. “If you remain here, in a very short time they will kill you, for your enemies are thirsting for your blood. I save you and you become mine, and have I not a right to claim your love?”
“If the only conditions upon which you will set me free are that I should give you my love, it were better that you left me here to die.”
“No; it is not so. If you die, I will die with you. But why do you spurn me? It is said that I am beautiful. Poets have sung of my beauty, and kings have acknowledged it.”
“I do not spurn you, Haidee. I feel the power of your beauty; the light of your eyes thrills me, but my love is already given. I have a wife; by all that is honourable and true I am bound to her, and therefore could not love another.”
Haidee uttered a cry of pain, and pressed her hand to her heart.
“Alas! how my dreams fade,” she murmured, “and how wretched is my life.”
“Say not so,” he answered, as he once more took her hand, and looked into the beautiful eyes that were now flooded with tears. “Say not so. You have youth, and happiness may yet come. Let me be your friend—you shall be my sister. I will shield your life with mine, protect and respect your honour, and endeavour to right you if you have been wronged.”
Again she fell at his feet, and, seizing his hand, smothered it with kisses.
“Light of my soul,” she murmured; “even as you say, so shall it be; and though I may not own your love, I will be your willing and faithful slave.”
He raised her up, and said—