ted slightly. It might have been the cry of a wolf, or of
some wild beast prowling upon the heights, but she had never heard such
a sound before. But Atossa showed no surprise, and her smile returned
to her lips more sweetly than ever--those lips that had kissed three
kings, and that had never spoken truly a kind or a merciful word to
living man, or child, or woman.

"Farewell, Nehushta," she said, "if you will not come, I will leave you
to yourself--and to your lover. I daresay he can protect you from harm.
Heard you that sound? It is the cry of your fate. Farewell, foolish
girl, and may every undreamed-of quality of evil attend you to your
dying day----"

"Go!" cried Nehushta, turning and pointing to the path with a gesture of
terrible anger. Atossa moved back a little.

"It is no wonder I linger awhile--I thought you were past suffering. If
I had time, I might yet find some way of tormenting you--you are very
foolish----"

Nehushta walked rapidly forward upon her, as though to do her some
violence with her own hands. But Atossa, as she gave way before the
angry Hebrew woman, drew from beneath her mantle the Indian knife she
had once taken from her. Nehushta stopped short, as she saw the bright
blade thrust out against her bosom. But Atossa held it up one moment,
and then threw it down upon the grass at her feet.

"Take it!" she cried, and in her voice, that had been so sweet and
gentle a moment before, there suddenly rang out a strange defiance and a
bitter wrath. "Take what is yours--I loathe it, for it smells of
you--and you, and all that is yours, I loathe and hate and scorn!"

She turned with a quick movement and disappeared amongst her slaves,
who closed in their ranks behind her, and followed her rapidly down the
path. Nehushta remained standing upon the grass, peering after her
retreating enemy through the gloom; for the glow had faded from the
western sky while they had been speaking, and it was now dusk.

Suddenly, as she stood, almost transfixed with the horror of her fearful
anger, that strange cry rang again through the lofty crags and crests of
the mountains, and echoed and died away.

Nehushta's slave-women, who had hung back in fear and trembling during
the altercation between the two queens, came forward and gathered about
her.

"What is it?" asked the queen in a low voice, for her own heart beat
with the anticipation of a sudden danger. "It is the cry of your fate,"
Atossa had said--verily