e matter? Why if ever there was trouble there's trouble
now. You know when I left you? Well, I was shown straight into
Sorais' private chamber, and a wonderful place it is; and there
she sat, quite alone, upon a silken couch at the end of the room,
playing gently upon that zither of hers. I stood before her,
and for a while she took no notice of me, but kept on playing
and singing a little, and very sweet music it was. At last she
looked up and smiled.

'"So thou art come," she said. "I thought perchance thou hadst
gone about the Queen Nyleptha's business. Thou art ever on her
business, and I doubt not a good servant and a true."

'To this I merely bowed, and said I was there to receive the
Queen's word.

'"Ah yes, I would talk with thee, but be thou seated. It wearies
me to look so high," and she made room for me beside her on the
couch, placing herself with her back against the end, so as to
have a view of my face.

'"It is not meet," I said, "that I should make myself equal with
the Queen."

'"I said be seated," was her answer, so I sat down, and she began
to look at me with those dark eyes of hers. There she sat like
an incarnate spirit of beauty, hardly talking at all, and when
she did, very low, but all the while looking at me. There was
a white flower in her black hair, and I tried to keep my eyes
on it and count the petals, but it was of no use. At last, whether
it was her gaze, or the perfume in her hair, or what I do not
know, but I almost felt as though I was being mesmerized. At
last she roused herself.

'"Incubu," she said, "lovest thou power?"

'I replied that I supposed all men loved power of one sort or another.

'"Thou shalt have it," she said. "Lovest thou wealth?"

'I said I liked wealth for what it brought.

'"Thou shalt have it," she said. "And lovest thou beauty?"

'To this I replied that I was very fond of statuary and architecture,
or something silly of that sort, at which she frowned, and there
was a pause. By this time my nerves were on such a stretch that
I was shaking like a leaf. I knew that something awful was going
to happen, but she held me under a kind of spell, and I could
not help myself.

'"Incubu," she said at length, "wouldst thou be a king? Listen,
wouldst thou be a king? Behold, stranger, I am minded to make
thee king of all Zu-Vendis, ay and husband of Sorais of the Night.
Nay, peace and hear me. To no man among my people had I thus
opened out