, though at first I did not see her. The suspicions of these
modern days had taken a deep hold of the girl, and she must needs crouch
in hiding till she made sure it was I who came to the chamber, and,
moreover, that I came alone.

"Oh, frown at me if you choose," said she sullenly, "I am past caring
now for your good opinion. I had heard so much of Deucalion, and I
thought I read honesty in you when first you came ashore; but now I know
that you are no better than the rest. Phorenice offers you a high place,
and you marry her blithely to get it. And why, indeed, should you not
marry her? People say she is pretty, and I know she can be warm. I have
seen her warm and languishing to scores of men. She is clever, too, with
her eyes, is our great Empress; I grant her that. And as for you, it
tickles you to be courted."

"I think you are a very silly woman," I said.

"If you flatter yourself it matters a rap to me whom you marry, you are
letting conceit run away with you."

"Listen," I said. "I did not ask you here to make foolish speeches
which seem largely beyond my comprehension. I asked you to help me do a
service to one of your own blood-kin."

She stared at me wonderingly. "I do not understand."

"It rests largely with you as to whether Nais dies to-morrow, or whether
she is thrown into a sleep from which she may waken on some later and
more happy day."

"Nais!" she gasped. "My twin, Nais? She is not here. She is out in
the camp with those nasty rebels who bite against the city walls, if,
indeed, still she lives."

"Nais, your sister is near us in the royal pyramid this minute, and
under guard, though where I do not know." And with that I told her all
that had passed since the girl was brought up a prisoner in the galley
of that foolish, fawning captain of the port. "The Empress has decreed
that Nais shall be buried alive under a throne of granite which I am to
build for her to-morrow, and buried she will assuredly be. Yet I have a
kindness for Nais, which you may guess at if you choose, and I am minded
to send her into a sleep such as only we higher priests know of, from
which at some future day she may possibly awaken."

"So it is Nais; and not Phorenice, and not--not any other?"

"Yes; it is Nais. I marry the Empress because Zaemon, who is mouthpiece
to the High Council of the Priests, has ordered it, for the good of
Atlantis. But my inwards remain still cold towards her."

"Almost I hate poor Nais alre