give her the glad
tidings that her boy is alive and well."

The tone of confidence, together with the testimony of the papyrus, and
the boy's beautiful face, removed the last shadow of doubt from the
eunuch's mind. Here was a great fact; but what use could be made of it?
Above all, what advantage could he draw from it? He stood with his fat
chin in his hand, turning it over in his cunning brain.

"Old man," said he at last, "to how many have you told this secret?"

"To no one in the whole world," the other answered. "There is Deacon
Bardas at the monastery and myself. No one else knows anything."

"You are sure of this?"

"Absolutely certain."

The eunuch had made up his mind. If he alone of all men in the palace
knew of this event, he would have a powerful hold over his masterful
mistress. He was certain that Justinian the Emperor knew nothing of
this. It would be a shock to him. It might even alienate his affections
from his wife. She might care to take precautions to prevent him from
knowing. And if he, Basil the eunuch, was her confederate in those
precautions, then how very close it must draw him to her. All this
flashed through his mind as he stood, the papyrus in his hand, looking
at the old man and the boy.

"Stay here," said he. "I will be with you again." With a swift rustle of
his silken robes he swept from the chamber.

A few minutes had elapsed when a curtain at the end of the room was
pushed aside, and the eunuch, reappearing, held it back, doubling his
unwieldy body into a profound obeisance as he did so. Through the gap
came a small alert woman, clad in golden tissue, with a loose outer
mantle and shoes of the Imperial purple. That colour alone showed that
she could be none other than the Empress; but the dignity of her
carriage, the fierce authority of her magnificent dark eyes, and the
perfect beauty of her haughty face, all proclaimed that it could only be
that of Theodora who, in spite of her lowly origin, was the most
majestic as well as the most maturely lovely of all the women in her
kingdom. Gone now were the buffoon tricks which the daughter of Acacius
the bearward had learned in the amphitheatre; gone too was the light
charm of the wanton, and what was left was the worthy mate of a great
king, the measured dignity of one who was every inch an empress.

Disregarding the two men, Theodora walked up to the boy, placed her two
white hands upon his shoulders, and looked with a long questio