t wonder.
This severity must have its unpleasant side. But why do you not put it
beyond my power to give the order? Either you must think yourselves Gods
or me no Goddess, or you would not have gone on so far. Come now, you
nasty-smelling people, follow out your theory, and if you make a good
fight of it, I swear by my face I will be lenient with those who do not
fall."

But there was no pressing up to meet our swords. They still ringed us
in, savage and sullen, beyond the ring of their own dead, and would
neither run back to the houses, nor give us the game of further fight.
There was a certain stubborn bravery about them that one could not but
admire, and for myself I determined that next time it became my duty
to raise troops, I would catch a handful of these men, and teach them
handiness with the utensils of war, and train them to loyalty and
faithfulness. But presently from behind their ranks a stone flew, and
though it whizzed between the Empress and myself, and struck down a
fisher, it showed that they had brought a new method into their attack,
and it behoved us to take thought and meet it.

I looked round me up and down the beach. There was no sign of a rescue.
"Phorenice," I said in the court tongue, which these barbarous fishers
would know little enough of, "I take it that a whiff of the sea-breeze
would come very pleasant after all this warm play. As you can show such
pretty sword work, will you cut me a way down to the beach, and I will
do my poor best to keep these creatures from snapping at our heels?"

"Oh!" cried she. "Then I am to have a courtier for a husband after all.
Why have you kept back your flattering speeches till now? Is that your
trick to make me love you?"

"I will think out the reason for it another time."

"Ah, these stern, commanding husbands," said she, "how they do press
upon their little wives!" and with that leaped over the ring of dead
before her, and cut and stabbed a way through those that stood between
her and the waters which creamed and crashed upon the beach. Gods!
what a charge she made. It made me tingle with admiration as I followed
sideways behind her, guarding the rear. And I am a man that has spent so
many years in battling, that it takes something far out of the common to
move me to any enthusiasm in this matter.

There were two boats creaking and washing about in the edge of the surf,
but in one, happily, the wicker-work which made its frame was crushed
by the w