crept
over him as he watched her, and he found himself asking whether, after
all, Phadrig's story might have been true. But, true or not, there was
the fascination which, as Phadrig had told him, had lured Isaac Josephus
to his self-inflicted doom. Her eyes were chained to the gem: her face
was no longer that of a living woman dominated by her own will. After
all his disbelief, there _was_ an enchantment in the Stone, for here,
even she, Nitocris, had succumbed to it.

He sat and waited for a few minutes longer. If there is magic in the
Stone, let it work, he thought; and so he sat and watched her until he
saw that the fixed stare of her eyes and the rigidity of her now
perfectly statuesque face convinced him that the magic of the Stone had,
as Phadrig had told him, made him the possessor of it, absolute master
of the man or woman who had gazed upon its fatal beauty.

Then he got up and, reaching over her shoulders, took up the diamond
chain, glistening under the soft light of the starry dome of the saloon,
shook it out into a flood of white radiance, lifted it above her head,
and let it fall very gently round her neck. The Horus Stone, as though
endowed with sentience, fell and rested where it had rested five
thousand years before. As it touched her flesh Nitocris felt a tremor of
indescribable emotion, not only of the body but of the soul, pass
through her. She leaned back in her chair again, and whispered:

"Is it really mine now, Prince? But no! How could I take it from you--I
who can give nothing in exchange for such a treasure? No, no, you must
take it back. I am not worthy to wear it."

He laid his hands gently on her arms, and said in a soft, murmuring tone
which sounded like the purring of a tiger-cat:

"Nitocris, if all the choicest gems in all the world could be put into a
crucible and fused into one, all its splendour would still be unworthy
to lie on that white breast of yours. Give me your love, Nitocris. I am
hungering and thirsting for it. Come with me to Oscarburg, and you shall
be crowned Princess--and after that Empress--Empress of the Russias and
the East. I will give you a dominion such as the great Catherine never
dared to dream of. Say yes, and in a month you shall be seated on her
throne. It is only a little word, dearest, only a little word--will you
not say it, and be my Princess, my Queen, my Empress?"

"I am tired now, Oscar," she said wearily, "so much has happened in so
short a time.