But the maid, like a frightened child, clung to me still, and half-weeping went on with her story.
“It was late, as I have told you, and yet I could not sleep. But at length I was so worn with brooding on the dreadful past, and the black future, that I think I must have dropped into a light slumber. And in my dreams a still more awful horror took hold on me, and I would have cried out but a hand was placed over my mouth, and I awoke. The Queen stood by my side.” Astolba covered her face with her hands. “I shall never forget the anger, the hatred, and the scorn of her look, yet when she spoke, her voice was low, and calm with a cruel quiet.
“‘Miserable white-faced slave,’ she said. ‘Have you wondered why I have so far spared you? Did you think because you have escaped the serpent’s pit, that you could hope to escape me? It would have been all too easy to have thrown you to those dogs without the gates, who would have made short work of your slender prettiness.’
“Then her passion seemed to break out of the bonds in which she held it. She took hold of my arm—see the mark of her fingers on the flesh. She dragged me half-fainting from the couch, and I swayed to and fro in her iron grasp.
“‘Look,’ she said, ‘look at me well, and ask yourself if your white face can hold a charm for him, now that he has gazed upon my beauty? Yet will I make sure. You have heard many a secret of the Palace; yet you have not heard of the flower of death. But fear not, for of that also you shall know. You shall breathe its perfume, when you think not, and you shall die. Little by little your blood shall dry in your veins, and your fair, white skin shall shrivel and hang loose. Your eyes shall lose their lustre. You shall have pity, perchance, but love shall pass you by. Day by day you will wither. You will seek for death, and death will come all too slowly. Yet in the end, that also shall come, and with it the first and last mercy that shall be rendered to you from the hands of Lah, the Queen—’
“Then she left me—”
“And you awoke,” said I, half-smiling, as one comforting a child. “For surely, Astolba, you cannot think that such a thing as this could by any chance be true. The flower of death! Are you not already a little ashamed of all this nonsense? As for the Queen, has she not shielded us all at the risk of her own life? And while I am here, and Lestrade, what do you fear? Death could come to you only after it had come first to us. And in truth, it shall go hard if we do not soon find some way to save you and ourselves. But we must trust the Queen. Have patience a little—” and here I stooped, and kissed as a brother might, the soft cheek, now so pale and wan. “Meanwhile dream no more dreams.”
And so I left her, with drooping head like a broken flower—left her and sought the woman whose strong hand still held the threads of the tangled web that men call fate.
Chapter XV
The White Dove’s Flight
Now I had gone from Astolba in the full belief that she had dreamed this thing, yet such is the strangeness of life, an hour had not passed by, when I gave fullest credence both to her story and her danger. For in that hour the mask of womanly gentleness had dropped from the Queen, and with it, the blindness from my eyes. I saw, as long ago I should have seen, had the charm of her great beauty been less, that the Palace of the Walled City was no fit resting-place, and that there was a brave man’s work to be done, and by me.