“To our One God, Jehovah, I offer my thanks,” said Miriam fervently, “but, my lord, do you not fear to speak thus openly to me, for it must surely be known to you that from my mistress I will keep no word?”
“For that matter,” answered Alric lightly, “you and I have but one life purpose. I, too, keep nothing concealed from the Princess Hatsu. Listen, I will unfold to you now more serious matters. I, Alric, hold the peace, the happiness, the life of the Princess Hatsu in my power, and for my service the price I ask shall be one gift—I want Miriam, the daughter of Abram to wife.”
With a cry, Miriam rose to her feet and stood before Alric, moved (she did not question why) by an anger quite unknown to her in any hour of her past life.
“Spy! Coward!!” she said, her pink cheeks flamed to a deep red, her eyes blazed with scorn, and her splendid figure seemed as fixed as a graven image. “You shall find that for all your cunning there will open for you no vulnerable place in the armor of my loyalty to my mistress! Aye, all your brutal showing of your freeman’s power over my bondage and my woman’s weakness cannot reach my SOUL! I, Miriam, defy you to gain from me in the future one word I do not choose to speak. Let the Princess make a free gift of her bondwoman! to you! and I must submit to the inevitable, but mark me, no word that the Princess ever has said, or will say, shall come to you through me! and every word that you have said or will say shall be whispered into her ear. My Lord Alric, in my young childhood the late King took me from among mine own people to be the companion of his daughter. He gave to my father a place of honor and trust among the builders, and the Princess has cherished me with sisterly tenderness. If you will that I die for it here at your feet, still I swear not to become your tool, even though I be your slave, aye, to my God I swear it!”
The Captain had moved a pace or two back from Miriam as she spoke, and as he listened to her every word he put one of his hands into the folds of his toga and drew from thence a small disk of glass. He never took his eyes from Miriam’s eyes; his gaze was fixed, and intense, and as she had gone on with her speech, it was perceptible that all unconsciously a subtle power was weaving itself about her. A sense, not of faintness, but rather of pleasant numbness stole slowly and softly over Miriam, mind and nerves, and a sweet peace that stayed the angry torrent of her blood, and brought a smile to her lips came, when she heard (as in a dream) these words.
“By my shield and buckler, by my good sword, I swear to you, that I am loyal to the Princess Hatsu.”
A change was passing over the girl’s face. She still stood before him, erect, and calm, but expression was fading out. The look that the dead wear was with her. Her color had fled, giving place to ashen wanness, and the light in her beautiful eyes was dimmed. Her mouth grew set, her nostrils pinched, and her breathing came in great waves of effort. Alric now raised his other hand and moved it to and fro above the girl’s head, to a sort of measured time, repeating slowly, crooningly, and softly:
“Go to sleep!
G-o t-o s-l-e-e-p.