Nagato approached the Queen, and, kneeling, offered her the fan.
Fatkoura abruptly recited the following lines, which she improvised on the spur of the moment:—
"The pheasant runs through the fields; he attracts all eyes by his
gilded plumage;
He cries aloud as he seeks his food.
Then he turns towards his mate,
And through love for her he involuntarily betrays the place of
his retreat to men."
The Queen frowned, and paled slightly. A transport of rage made her heart palpitate; for she saw that Fatkoura, by this improvisation, hurled an outrageous insult at Nagato and herself. She slandered her sovereign with the daring of a soul which has lost all, and offers one buckler to revenge,—despair.
The Kisaki, feeling her inability to punish, was seized by a vague terror, and repressed her wrath. If she acknowledged that she understood the injurious intention of Fatkoura's words, must she not confess to a guilty prepossession,—an interest unworthy of her majesty,—in the love to which her beauty had given birth in the heart of one of her subjects?
She complimented Fatkoura in a very quiet voice upon the elegance of her poem; then she sent her by a page the prize offered for competition. It was a charming collection of poems, no longer than a man's finger; the fashion being for the smallest books possible.
Some hours later, while the Prince of Nagato, leaning over the edge of the terrace, was gazing down from the mountain top at the setting sun, which shed its purple glory across the sky, the Kisaki drew near him.
He lifted his eyes to her face, thinking that she wished to speak to him; but she was silent, her eyes fixed on the horizon, and full of sadness; she preserved a solemn attitude.
The reflection from the western sky disguised her pallor. She repressed some painful emotion, and strove to restrain a tear that trembled on her lashes and dimmed her sight.
Nagato felt a sort of terror; he was sure that she was going to say something dreadful to him. He would fain have prevented her from speaking.