slaves who bore her carpet and cushions in case she
wished to sit down. She walked languidly, as though she hardly cared to
lift her delicate slippered feet from the smooth walk, and often she
paused and plucked a flower, and all her train of serving-women stopped
behind her, not daring even to whisper among themselves, for the young
queen was in no gentle humour of mind. Her face was pale and her eyes
were heavy, for she knew the man she had so loved in other days was
near, and though he had so bitterly deceived her, the sound of his sweet
promises was yet in her ears; and sometimes, in her dreams, she felt the
gentle breath of his mouth upon her sleeping lips, and woke with a start
of joy that was but the forerunner of a new sadness.

Slowly she paced the walks of the rose-gardens, thinking of another
place in the far north, where there had been roses, and myrtles too,
upon a terrace where the moonlight was very fair.

As she turned a sharp corner where the overhanging shrubbery darkened
the declining light to a dusky shade, she found herself face to face
with the man of whom she was thinking. His tall thin figure, clad in
spotless white robes, seemed like a shadow in the gloom, and his snowy
beard and hair made a strange halo about his young face, that was so
thin and worn. He walked slowly, his hands folded together, and his eyes
upon the ground; while a few paces behind him two young priests followed
with measured steps, conversing in low tones, as though fearing to
disturb the meditations of their master.

Nehushta started a little and would have passed on, although she
recognised the face of him she had loved. But Zoroaster lifted his eyes,
and looked on her with so strange an expression that she stopped short
in the way. The deep, calm light in his eyes awed her, and there was
something in his majestic presence that seemed of another world.

"Hail, Nehushta!" said the high priest quietly.

But, at the sound of his voice, the spell was broken. The Hebrew woman
lifted her head proudly, and her black eyes flashed again.

"Greet me not," she answered, "for the greeting of a liar is like the
sting of the serpent that striketh unawares in the dark."

Zoroaster's face never changed, only his luminous eyes gazed on hers
intently, and she paused again, as though riveted to the spot.

"I lie not, nor have lied to thee ever," he answered calmly. "Go thou
hence, ask her whom thou hatest, whether I have deceived thee.