A tremor shook the hand on his forehead, and larger grew the great eyes bending over him.
“Did they say of what he was sick?” she asked.
“Of the plague.”
“And what is that?”
“Death,” he answered, and next moment fell asleep.
Over her heart, to hush the loudness of its beating, she clasped her hands; for out of the chamber of the almost forgotten, actual as in life, stalked Mualox, the paba, saying, as once on the temple he said, “You shall be queen in your father’s palace.” She saw his beard of fleecy white, and his eyes of mystery, and asked herself again and again, “Was he indeed a prophet?”
And the loving child and faithful subject strove hard to hide from the alluring promise, for in its way she descried two living kings, her father and her uncle; but it sought her continually, and found her, and at last held her as a dream holds a sleeper,—held her until the stars heralded the dawn, and the ’tzin awoke to go back to the city, back to the battle,—from love to battle.
CHAPTER XIII
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
“Leave the city, now so nearly won! Surely, father, surely thou dost jest with me!”