“Gods, how I fear it! But it will not creep in here. We stand high from the city. Our garden is wardered with medicinal herbs, and these odors and essences defend us. So we need not fear it. And yet, gods, how I fear it!”
Even as she spoke and shuddered the hangings of the portal parted, and one of her women entered and saluted reverentially. Lycabetta turned a little on the couch to look at her.
“What is it, Lysidice?” she asked.
“Zal and Rustum, the King’s Moors, wait without,” Lysidice answered. “They come with a charge from the King.”
“What charge?” Lycabetta asked, attracted by any interruption in the monotony of her night.
“They say they have a woman with them,” Lysidice answered.
Lycabetta struck herself upon the forehead with her open palm.
“A woman!” she cried, joyously. “Why, I had forgotten. Now I shall have sport in my loneliness. This is the girl who is to be my plaything. Admit them and tell them to leave the girl here alone. But bid them wait within call. I may have need of them. Fly away, love-birds.”
Lysidice went out as she had come, to bear Lycabetta’s bidding to the Moorish slaves. The others, fluttering like frightened doves before Lycabetta’s dismissal, disappeared into the farther apartments of the palace. Lycabetta rose alertly, and, mounting the steps that rose behind the altar leading to another room, concealed herself behind the dividing curtains. In a few moments Zal and Rustum came in bearing between them a gilded litter curtained with crimson silk. Setting this upon the ground, they drew the curtains and bade Perpetua come forth. As Perpetua emerged from the litter the brightness of the light after her long journey through the night dazzled her, and for a moment she put her hands to her eyes to shield them from the unexpected light. In that moment Zal and Rustum had lifted up the litter and disappeared through the hangings.