I saw the Queen’s hand tremble as she grasped the hilt of the dagger at her girdle. Then she relaxed her hold, and her beautiful head bent with a kind of proud humility.
“My lord himself shall say,” she answered. Then swifter than an arrow’s flight her mood changed. With a regal gesture she drew back from my embrace.
“Tell me, stranger to me and to my people. Lay bare thy heart and lie not. Is it I whom you love, or does thy fancy hold yet to that weak thing, that white-faced girl Astolba?”
The attack was so sudden that I knew not well how to stand against it. For the first time in my life I wished for the nimble tongue of my friend Lestrade, and somewhat too of his wider knowledge of the wiles of women.
“Answer, slave!” cried Lah, imperiously.
I looked up, and the half-contemptuous tone stung me to a sullen defiance.
“I love neither you nor the other,” I said doggedly.
“By Edba and by Hed!” breathed the Queen sharply, and I saw her face grow ashen.
She laughed, but not loudly, and I misliked the sound; and again silence fell upon us. Then once more Lah’s voice, cruel, beautiful as her face, and as calmly cold:—
“Thou shalt die a dog’s death,” she said. “Even now is thy doom upon thee,” and she pointed to the place where we stood.