"Fear speaks in your voice," Sidonia replied with a cruel smile upon her lips. "You are in my power, else had you long ago consigned me to a place whence there is no return. With me the secret of another's death would go to the grave."
"Nay, you do not understand!" Basil interposed. "The woman who has aroused Theodora's maddened jealousy is nothing to me. But I have other plans concerning her—she must be saved!"
"Other plans?" replied Sidonia darkly. "What other plans? What sort of woman is she who can arouse the jealousy of Theodora?"
"White and cold as the snows of the North."
"A stranger in Rome?"
"The wife of one whose days are numbered, if I rightly read the oracle."
"What is this plan?" Sidonia insisted.
"She is to be delivered to Hassan Abdullah, as reward for his aid in the great stroke that is about to fall."
In the distance whimpered a bell.
"And, when the hour tolls—the hour of which you have so often prated—when you sit in the high seat of the Senator of Rome—where then will I be, who have watched your power grow and have aided it in its upward flight?"