"What if I were to tell you that he was never defeated, that he is alive—."
"He triumphs over your heart; he lives in your imagination: that is what you mean."
"No; he still breathes the breath of life."
"Alas, that is impossible! Before our eyes—I shudder to think of it still—his ghastly head fell to the ground."
"That man, whose death we witnessed, was not Iwakura."
"Has grief affected her reason?" thought Tika, scrutinizing her mistress in some alarm.
"You think me mad?" said Fatkoura, "You shall see, when he comes to open the doors of our prison, whether I speak the truth.".
Tika dared not contradict her mistress; she pretended to believe that Nagato lived. "Better this strange hallucination than her former blank despair!" she thought.
They then began to talk of the absent one as had been their wont in the Dairi. They recalled the words that he had spoken, the anecdotes he had told. They tried to imitate the tones of his voice. They reconstructed his every dress, rehearsed, his features, his smile, his attitude. Often they would hold a long discussion over some detail or date, or a simple phrase which he had uttered. In this fashion the hours glided rapidly by.
Every day the Prince of Tosa sent presents to Fatkoura,—flowers, rare birds, marvellous fabrics. Every day Fatkoura let the birds fly, threw the silks and flowers from the window. The Prince never wearied. At noon he would pay a visit to the prisoner, and discourse of his love.