The lash of her scorn cut me like a knife, but I felt that the time for half-truths was over. So I said humbly but yet steadfastly, “I do not know. Nevertheless I cannot leave her to perish. Remember she has saved your life and mine.”
“Go then,” she cried bitterly. “We waste time. I thank Heaven there beats yet one loyal heart; one who will stand my friend. If we part here, it is forever.”
“Forever if it be your will,” I answered, with sad pride.
And with that I saw Lestrade draw the maid close, and together, without a word, they passed from me, and the darkness swallowed them; and I, turning, bade Hubla lead onward to the Queen.
Chapter XX
The Beginning of the End
How little a man sees of what is before him. A week hence I would have scorned the thought that, once free, I should enter willingly again the City of heathen gods; that monster city that stretched before me, pitiless and dark, and full of mystery. Full, too, of the thirst of blood and of nameless deeds.
Surely the measure of its iniquity had overflowed. Within its walls there was little room for a man of peace like myself, but in these days I was not the master of my acts that I had once been; an inward fire consumed me. I will not make out my case one whit better than it was. Looking back in the calm of these latter days, I see Astolba was not all wrong.
It was not duty simply that drove me back; the duty of man to woman. It was, too, a strange half-bitter gladness that rose within me, as by Hubla’s side I went back, to face death, if need be, with her whose peril called me,—Lah, the Queen.
When the red witch had clutched my knees beseeching, she had seemed too feeble for further effort. Now, however, as once before had chanced, as we sought the road to the Palace, I had much ado to keep up with the swiftness of her halting gait.
For all my efforts she was ever in front, and as we had naught to say to each other, it was not long before we reached one of the secret entrances to the place, within which the uncanny figure of Hubla vanished, flitting like a bat through the darkness.