usly I had
esteemed my soul a worthy scapegoat, and I had gilded my enormity with
many lies. Yet indeed, indeed, I had believed brave things, I had
planned a not ignoble bargain--! Ey, say, is it not laughable,
madame?--as my birthright Heaven accords me a penny, and with that only
penny I must anon be seeking to bribe Heaven."

Presently he said: "Yet are we indeed God's satraps, as but now I cried
in my vainglory, and we hold within our palms the destiny of many
peoples. Depardieux! He is wiser than we are, it may be! And as
always Satan offers no unhandsome bribes--bribes that are tangible and
sure."

They stood like effigies, lit by the broad, unsparing splendor of the
morning, but again their kindling eyes had met, and again the man
shuddered visibly, convulsed by a monstrous and repulsive joy.
"Decide! oh, decide very quickly, my only friend!" he wailed, "for
throughout I am all filth!"

Closer she drew to him and without hesitancy laid one hand on either
shoulder. "O my only friend!" she breathed, with red lax lips which
were very near to his, "throughout so many years I have ranked your
friendship as the chief of all my honors! and I pray God with an entire
heart that I may die so soon as I have done what I must do to-day!"

Almost did Edward Maudelain smile, but now his stiffening mouth could
not complete the brave attempt. "God save King Richard!" said the
priest. "For by the cowardice and greed and ignorance of little men
were Salomon himself confounded, and by them is Hercules lightly
unhorsed. Were I Leviathan, whose bones were long ago picked clean by
pismires, I could perform nothing. Therefore do you pronounce my doom."

"O King," then said Dame Anne, "I bid you go forever from the court and
live forever a landless man, and friendless, and without even name. I
bid you dare to cast aside all happiness and wealth and comfort and
each common tie that even a pickpocket may boast, like tawdry and
unworthy garments. In fine, I bid you dare be King and absolute, yet
not of England--but of your own being, alike in motion and in thought
and even in wish. This doom I dare adjudge and to pronounce, since we
are royal and God's satraps, you and I."

Twice or thrice his dry lips moved before he spoke. He was aware of
innumerable birds that carolled with a piercing and intolerable
sweetness. "O Queen!" he hoarsely said, "O fellow satrap! Heaven has
many fiefs. A fair province is wasted and acco