“Lindane, I love thee—and yet thou must die!”
“O Earth! this love!”
“Such as love is on earth, I have it for thee.”
“Maybe so,” answered the Amazon. “I have been weary of the sun since you took me by numbers on my own sea-strand.”
“By strength of my own arm, also!”
“Strong arm, dull wit, unjust heart!”
“O woman, are you so different from me?”
“If I had here an apple,” said Lindane, “I would cut it in two, and give Sandanis half, keeping half myself. The two halves would not be different, but the king would have one, and a slave for the sacrifice the other!”
Sandanis came nearer to her. They kept silence in the rock-hewn place, then the island king uttered a cry. “When we fought that day in the wood by the salt meadow, yea, by the god! when I sent a javelin through the neck of your great white horse and dragged you down, it was as though many times we had fought and loved before!”
“Much fighting, little loving.—O my mother! O my queen!”