Atossa moved slowly away from the tamarisk, keeping herself carefully betwixt it and Mermaza. “My excellent sir,” quoth she, taking care never to lose the chamberlain’s eye, “I am most delighted to have you here. Masistes has been telling a wondrous tale. This morning he was crossing a court, when behold! his hair rose in cold fright, for a groom was leading a great lion past him, by no stouter tether than a hound’s leash; yet the beast seemed gentle as a little dog. Surely, the cowardly rascal was merely affrighted by some monstrous mastiff?”
Atossa saw the worthy dart one sidling glance of keenest scrutiny upon her, but she endured it.
“My sweet mistress,” said Mermaza, speaking more halting than was his wont, “Masistes brings only truth. You have not seen, then, the king’s tame lions?”
“Assuredly not.” Atossa led the chamberlain to the opposite parapet, and gazed across, seemingly enraptured by the panorama of the city. In his anxiety to seem interested he never looked behind, where her keener ears detected the crackling branches as of one descending.
“Then,” smiled he, “we have a new wonder to show you. As soon as the king returns from the hunt we will bring the lions into the harem; you will find them harmless as cats, and vastly more entertaining.”
“Why not to-morrow? Does the king use them for hunting?”
“They are better than hounds. To-morrow his Majesty takes our dear friend the ‘worshipful’ envoy to his game preserves. The gods grant,” he continued piously, “that no wild beast harm the prince! ‘Prudence,’ I fear, is not a Persian word. He is all rashness.”
Atossa deliberately led him back to the other end of the walk. The refuge behind the tamarisk was empty, and so was the little court below.
“I have strolled here long,” asserted she suddenly; “even the view of the city grows wearisome. Let me go down to the luncheon.”
Mermaza was not pleased to have her end the promenade, yet perforce consented. But when Atossa’s petulance had chased the frightened maids from her chamber, it was to have a moment alone with Masistes, and to put in his hand a written slip of papyrus.