“See,” she said softly. “The time is short; we were mated from the beginning. O lion heart, since so soon we both must pass, forgive me, even as thus I forgive you.”
She stooped and kissed me once upon the forehead, and I in a frenzy born of the hour and of her beauty, caught her to me, and kissed her also, not once, but many times, on hair and hands and lips.
And all the time the water rose with a swift relentless quiet that knew no rest. No rest till its murderous task was done, and I, fool that I was, and she, the Queen, should die, like rats in a trap, inglorious, if together.
My brief passion grew cold at the thought. Yet my despair was not all for myself. It seemed too cruel a thing for truth, that one like to this woman, so splendidly alive, so perfect a work of nature, should be blotted out of existence by this cold, creeping, ignorant, pitiless force.
For now the water was ankle deep. I looked into the eyes of Lah, and they met mine with a soft serenity. Women are queer creatures. I do not doubt that in the very face of this slow and evil death, she, the Queen, was altogether happy.
I could not bear her gaze. Neither could I stand idle, while the treacherous flood rose about us.
It was wild and useless labor, but with a frenzy of energy I pulled together two jewel chests, piled on blocks of silver that felt like featherweights to my mad strength, took ivory tusks and casks of wine, and built a throne higher than his who sat unmoved, the serpent god looking upon our misery. Then, bearing her in my arms, on the topmost part I set the Queen, and she, seeing that I would have it so, obeyed, while I, a little lower, took my stand by her side.
And still the water rose, and still with wide-open eyes, all undismayed, sat Lah, while our swift heart-beats measured off the time,—the all too little time that for us two meant the whole remaining span of life.
The flood now had reached my knees, and had wet the hem of the Queen’s garment. It seemed to rise more quickly. I measured the space left to the roof of the storehouse and saw that soon our torture would be over.
Then a great rage took hold on me that thus we two should perish. I would at least make one more try for life. I would swim close to the walls of this infernal trap and see if somewhere, somehow, there lay not a chance of rescue.