hey
tricked me about those biscuits, pretending to eat when they were not
eating, for which never will I forgive them. It was Japhet, a gallant
man on one side, but a coward on the other like the rest of the Abati,
who betrayed us, driven thereto by emptiness within, which, after all,
is an ill enemy to fight. He went out and told Joshua where we lay hid,
and then, of course, they came.

Well, they took away my lord and the others, and me too they bore to
another place and fed me till my strength returned, and oh! how good was
that honey which first I ate, for I could touch nothing else. When I was
strong again came Prince Joshua to me and said, "Now I have you in my
net; now you are mine."

Then I answered Joshua, "Fool, your net is of air; I will fly through
it."

"How?" he asked. "By death," I answered, "of which a hundred means lie
to my hand. You have robbed me of one, but what does that matter when so
many remain? I will go where you and your love cannot pursue me."

"Very well, Child of Kings," he said, "but how about that tall Gentile
who has caught your eyes, and his companions? They, too, have recovered,
and they shall die every one of them after a certain fashion (which, I
Maqueda, will not set down, since there are some things that ought not
to be written). If you die, they die; as I told you, they die as a wolf
dies that is caught by the shepherds; they die as a baboon dies that is
caught by the husbandman."

Now I looked this way and that, and found that there was no escape. So I
made a bargain.

"Joshua," I said, "let these men go and I swear upon the name of our
mother, she of Sheba, that I will marry you. Keep them and kill them,
and you will have none of me."

Well, in the end, because he desired me and the power that went with me,
he consented.

Then I played my part. My lord and his companions were brought before
me, and in presence of all the people I mocked them; I spat in their
faces, and oh! fools, fools, fools, they believed me! I lifted my veil,
and showed them my eyes, and they believed also what they seemed to see
in my eyes, forgetting that I am a woman who can play a part at need.
Yes, they forgot that there were others to deceive as well, all the
Abati people, who, if they thought I tricked them, would have torn the
foreigners limb from limb. That was my bitterest morsel, that I should
have succeeded in making even my own lord believe that of all the wicked
women that ever trod