during my imprisonment, or perhaps I gave
them to Heliodore or to Martina. Where are they now, I
wonder?--Editor.

Then, before I could answer her, she was gone.

For some weeks after this I saw no more of the Augusta, who appeared
to avoid me. One day, however, I was summoned to her presence in her
private apartments by the waiting-lady Martina, and went, to find her
alone, save for Martina. The first thing that I noticed was that she
wore about her neck an exact copy of the necklace of golden shells and
emerald beetles; further, that about her waist was a girdle and on her
wrist a bracelet of similar design. Pretending to see nothing, I saluted
and stood to attention.

"Captain," she began, "yonder"--and she waved her hand towards the city,
so that I could not fail to see the shell bracelet--"the uncles of my
son, the Emperor, lie in prison. Have you heard of the matter, and, if
so, what have you heard?"

"I have heard, Augusta, that the Emperor having been defeated by
the Bulgarians, some of the legions proposed to set his uncle,
Nicephorus--he who has been made a priest--upon the throne. I have
heard further that thereon the Emperor caused the Caesar Nicephorus to
be blinded, and the tongues of the two other Caesars and of their two
brothers, the _Nobilissimi_, to be slit."

"Do you think well of such a deed, Olaf?"

"Augusta," I answered, "in this city I make it my business not to think,
for if I did I should certainly go mad."

"Still, on this matter I command you to think, and to speak the truth of
your thoughts. No harm shall come to you, whatever they may be."

"Augusta, I obey you. I think that whoever did this wicked thing must be
a devil, either returned from that hell of which everyone is so fond of
talking here, or on the road thither."

"Oh! you think that, do you? So I was right when I told Martina that
there was only one honest opinion to be had in Constantinople and I knew
where to get it. Well, most severe and indignant judge, suppose I tell
you it was I who commanded that this deed should be done. Then would you
change your judgment?"

"Not so, Augusta. I should only think much worse of you than ever I did
before. If these great persons were traitors to the State, they should
have been executed. But to torment them, to take away the sight of
heaven and to bring them to the level of dumb beasts, all that their
actual blood may not be on the tormentors' hand--why, the act is