She smiled contemptuously, and tilted back her head, and clasped her hands behind it, and watched me through her lashes. Yet I detected a resource of feverish resolve in her; and I knew that she and I, Mehemet, Sanson, were that night weaving the threads in a fabric upon the loom of destiny, and that each word we spoke flashed like the thread-bearing shuttle over it.
So, piecing my words together with infinite care, because the lives of Esther and all those who were dear to me hung on them, I answered her:
“Forgive my sullen mood. You have promised that my friends shall go free; yet they expect to die at sunrise, and it is hard to be at ease. How can I save them?”
Amaranth unclasped her hands and turned to me with a quick gesture of penitence.
“Ah, it was wrong of me to speak of love first, when you have such a burden of sorrow, Arnold!” she answered. “I had forgotten that men’s minds are troubled in the world below. Here we are free and have no cares, except how we shall take our pleasures. And to think that you left us to help your friends, when Lembken would have done everything you wished!
“Now I will set your mind at rest. Lembken has already given the command that your friends shall live until Sanson has spoken in the Temple, and when he has spoken he will no longer have power—if you obey Lembken. But he was deeply hurt by your leaving him, for he is very sensitive to unkindness, and so he asked me to speak to you on his behalf. Now, if you act loyally, you may save your friends and the world. Tomorrow there will be an end to all of Sanson’s mad schemes of tyranny. Mehemet and his guards have abandoned him. Lembken knows everything; he knows all the desperate plans his poor people have made, and his heart is wrung for them.”
She paused, and placing her hand on mine, looked very earnestly at me.
“Arnold, you know that Sanson has been poisoning the people’s minds against Lembken, in pursuance of his plan to depose him,” she continued. “So your part, which will be detailed to you later, will be to enter the Temple tomorrow among the priests. You will defend Lembken against Sanson. You will remind the people how they elected him from year to year, because he was their friend. Tell them he has not changed. And in return liberty shall be established and the hated Guard disbanded. Lembken asks only for his dignity and wealth, and his friends in the People’s House. He is growing old, Arnold, and desires power no more.”
She watched me with that centuries-old look, and in my heart I knew I had not fathomed hers. This was what I had meant to propose. Yet—yet I doubted her.
“It is agreed, then,” she cried gaily, “and now you will be one of us. It is past midnight, Arnold, and in a few short hours you shall be hidden in the priests’ room to be coached for your part. Till then—”