“Lady mine,” spoke Darius, his strong arm still holding fast, “do you know what Isaiah the Jew has told me? Do you know for what end Belshazzar brought you here?”
“Have I not heard from Isaiah’s own lips the story of what befell in these same Gardens and of the king’s unholy guile?”
“You know all and are yet so calm?”
She looked into his face almost defiantly.
“Because Ahura grants to you the fame of being ‘King of the Bow’ and of swinging the stoutest sword in wide Iran, has he denied that I also should be strong to bear? Am I not Cyrus’s own child, and must I show these ‘lie-loving’ Chaldees only tears and pain?”
“By Mithra, Lord of Light, I think it is I that must gain the courage out of you, for when I hear of your state, and the treachery with which Belshazzar had ensnared you, I was close to weeping like a maid, and doing deeds of madness!”
A faint sound, as of something moving, startled her.
“What is this?” she cried, leaping from the moss-bank. “There is danger!”
The sound, be it what it might, had vanished. Darius peered into the gloom; black shadows, the dim tracery of leafage, the distant sheen of the star mist—that seemed all.
“No peril,” he protested, drawing her back to the soft cool carpet. “Boges is on watch below; the eunuchs proved exceeding corruptible. Naught will be suspected.”