gaily throw your pang away," I whispered back. "I was
husband to Phorenice in mere word for how long I do not precisely know.
But in anything beyond, I was never her husband at all. She married
me by a form she prescribed herself, ignoring all the old rites and
ceremonies, and whether it would hold as legal or not, we need not
trouble to inquire. She herself has most nicely and completely annulled
that marriage as I have told you. Tatho is her husband now, and father
to her children, and he seems to have a fondness for her which does him
credit."

We said other things too in that chamber, those small repetitions
of endearments which are so precious to lovers, and so beyond the
comprehension of other folk, but they are not to be set down on these
sheets. They are a mere private matter which can have no concern to
any one beyond our two selves, and more weighty subjects are piling
themselves up in deep index for the historian.

Phorenice, it seemed, had more rage against the Priests' Clan on the
Mountain and more bright genius to help her to a vengeance than I had
credited. Her troops stormed easily the gates we had left to them, and
swarmed up till they stood where the pathway was broken down. In the
fierceness of their rush, the foremost were thrust over the brink by
those pressing up behind, before the advance could be halted, and these
went screaming to a horrid death in the great gulf below. But it was no
position here that a lavish spending of men could take, and presently
all were drawn off, save for some half-score who stood as outpost
sentries, and dodged out of arrow-shot behind angles of the rock.

It seems, too, that the Empress herself reconnoitered the place, using
due caution and quickness, and so got for herself a full plan of its
requirements without being obliged to trust the measuring of another
eye. With extraordinary nimbleness she must have planned an engine such
as was necessary to suit her purposes, and given orders for its making;
for even with the vast force and resources at her disposal, the speed
with which it was built was prodigious.

There was very little noise made to tell of what was afoot. All the
woodwork and metalwork was cut, and tongued, and forged, and fitted
first by skilled craftsmen below, in the plain at the foot of the cleft;
and when each ponderous balk and each crosspiece, and each plank was
dragged up the steep pass through the conquered gates, it was ready
instantly for