ain for ever as
an example for others. Lead your prisoner to the place."

The soldiers wheeled, and the two guards with the chains of the collar
which was on the neck of Nais prepared to put out force to drag her
up the steps. But she walked with them willingly, and with a colour
unchanged, and I rose from my seat, and made obeisance to the Empress
and followed them.

Before all those ten thousand eyes, we two made no display of emotion
then, not only for Atlantis' sake, but also because both Nais and I had
a nicety and a pride in our natures. We were not as Phorenice to flaunt
endearments before others.

Yet, when I had bidden the guards unhasp the collar which held the
prisoner's neck, and clapped my arms around her, showing all the
roughness of one who has no mind that his captive shall escape or even
unduly struggle, a thrill gushed through me so potent that I was like
to have fainted, and it was only by supreme strain of will that I held
unbrokenly on with the ceremonial. I, who had never embraced a woman
with aught but the arm of roughness before, now held pressed to me one
whom I loved with an infinite tenderness, and the revelation of how love
can come out and link with love was almost my undoing. Yet, outwardly,
Nais made so sign, but lay half-strangled in my arms, as any woman does
that is being borne away by a spoiler.

I trod with her to the uppermost step, the vast throne-stone overhanging
us, and then so that all of those who were gazing from the sides of the
pyramids and the roofs of the buildings round might see, though we were
beyond Phorenice's view, I used a force that was brutal in dragging her
across the level, and putting her down into the hollow. And yet the girl
resisted me with no one effort whatever.

So that the victim might not struggle out and be crushed, and so gain
an easy death when the stone descended, there were brazen clamps to fit
into grooves of the stones above the hollow where she lay, and these I
fitted in place above her, and fastened one by one, doing this butcher's
work with one hand, and still fiercely holding her down by the other.
Gods! and the sweat of agony dripped from me on to the thirsty stone as
I worked. I could not keep that in.

I clamped and locked the last two bars in place, and took my brute's
hand away from her throat.

The hateful fingermarks showed as bloodless furrows in the whiteness
of her skin. For the life of me, yes, even for the fate of Atlantis