'What makes you here?' inquired Fausta;--'are there none in Palmyra to do your bidding, but you must be abroad at such an hour and such a place?'
''Tis not so fearful quite,' replied the Queen, 'as a battle-field, and there you trust me.'
'Never, willingly.'
'Then you do not love my honor?' said the Queen, taking Fausta's hand as she spoke.
'I love your safety better--no--no--what have I said--not better than your honor--and yet to what end is honor, if we lose the life in which it resides? I sometimes think we purchase human glory too dearly, at the sacrifice of quiet, peace, and security.'
'But you do not think so long. What is a life of indulgence and sloth? Life is worthy only in what it achieves. Should I have done better to have sat over my embroidery, in the midst of my slaves, all my days, than to have spent them in building up a kingdom?'
'O no--no--you have done right. Slaves can embroider: Zenobia cannot. This hand was made for other weapon than the needle.'
'I am weary,' said the Queen; 'let us sit;'--and saying so, she placed herself upon the low stone block, upon which we had been sitting, and drawing Fausta near her, she threw her left arm round her, retaining the hand she held clasped in her own.
'I am weary,' she continued, 'for I have walked nearly the circuit of the walls. You asked what makes me here. No night passes but I visit these towers and battlements. If the governor of the ship sleeps, the men at the watch sleep. Besides, I love Palmyra too well to sleep while others wait and watch. I would do my share. How beautiful is this!--the city girded by these strange fires! its ears filled with this busy music! Piso, it seems hard to believe an enemy, and such an enemy, is there, and that these sights and sounds are all of death!'
'Would it were not so, noble Queen! Would it were not yet too late to move in the cause of peace. If even at the risk of life I--'