back
to you--my master. Have you nothing to say to me? Has the time
seemed long? Is it a weary while since I left you to do your will
and murder the woman whom you were now about to make your wife?"

A cry of horror rose from the people, and then stillness came again.

"Take the woman away," said Prince Tabnit only, "she is speaking
madness."

"I am speaking the truth," said the woman clearly. "I was of
Melita--there are those here who will know my face. And it is not I
alone who have served the State. I challenge you, Tabnit--here,
before them all! Where are Gerya and Ibera, Cabulla and Taura? Have
not their people, weeping, besought news of them in vain? And what
answer have you given them?"

Murmurs and sobs rose from the assembly, stilled by the tranquil
voice of the prince.

"Where are they?" he repeated gently, his voice vibrant in its rise
and fall, its giving of delicate values. "But the people know where
they are. They have attained to the perfect life and died the
perfect death. For I have raised them to the supreme estate."

Prince Tabnit, with uplifted face, sat motionless, looking out over
the throng from beneath lowered lids; then his eyes, confident and a
little mocking, returned to the woman. But they had for her no
terror. She turned from him, confronting the pale, eager faces of
the people; and in her beauty and distinction she was like Olivia's
women, crowded beside the dais.

"Men and women of Yaque," cried Elissa, "I will tell you to what
'supreme estate' these friends whom you seek have long been raised.
For here in Med and in Melita you will find many of those whom you
have mourned as dead--you will find them as you yourselves have met
and passed them, it may have been countless times, on your streets
of Yaque--not young and beautiful as when they left you, but men and
women of incredible age. Withered, shaken by palsy, infirm, they
creep upon their lonely ways or go at will to drag themselves
unrecognized along your highways, as helpless as the dead
themselves. They number scores, and they are those who have
displeased your prince by some little word, some little wrong, or,
more than these, by some thwarting of the way of his ambition: Oblo,
who disappeared from his place as keeper at the door; Ithobal,
satrap of Melita; young Prince Kaal--ay, and how many more? You do
not understand my words? I say that your prince has knowledge of
some secret, accursed drug that can call back youth o