“I bring thee six hundred.”
“Excellent! where didst thou get all this cash? Whom hast thou robbed? whom hast thou poisoned, my admirable priestess? Why wait till after to-morrow? Let it be to-morrow, to-night, if it please thee.”
“Be quiet now, Hyphax; the money is all lawful gain; but it has its conditions, too. I said I came to speak about the prisoner also.”
“Well, what has he to do with our approaching nuptials?”
“A great deal.”
“What now?”
“He must not die.”
The captain looked at her with a mixture of fury and stupidity. He seemed on the point of laying violent hands on her; but she stood intrepid and unmoved before him, and seemed to command him by the strong fascination of her eye, as one of the serpents of their native land might do a vulture.
“Art mad?” he at last exclaimed; “thou mightest as well at once ask for my head. If thou hadst seen the emperor’s face, when he issued his orders, thou wouldst have known he will have no trifling with him here.”
“Pshaw! pshaw! man; of course the prisoner will appear dead, and will be reported as dead.”