so is to charge me with lying; and to that charge,
whatever may be the customs of this world, there is in mine but one
answer," and I laid my hand on the hilt of the sword I wore in
deference to Davilo's warnings, but which he and others considered a
Terrestrial ornament rather than a weapon.

The President of the Academy quietly replied--"Of all the strange
things we have heard, this seems the strangest. I waive the
probability of your statements, or the reasonableness of the doubts
suggested. But I fail to understand how, here or in any other world,
if the imputation of falsehood be considered so gross an offence--and
here it is too common to be so regarded--it can be repelled by proving
yourself more skilled in the use of weapons, or stronger or more
daring than the person who has challenged your assertion."

The moral courage and self-possession of the President were as marked
as his logic was irrefragable; but my outbreak, however illogical,
served its purpose. No one was disposed to give mortal offence to one
who showed himself so ready to resent it, though probably the
apprehension related less to my swordsmanship than the favour I was
supposed to enjoy with the Suzerain.

Seriously impressed by the growing earnestness of Davilo's warnings,
and feeling that I could no longer conceal the pressure of some
anxiety on my mind, gradually, cautiously, and tenderly I broke to
Eveena what I had learned, with but two reserves. I would not render
her life miserable by the suggestion of possible treason in our own
household. That she might not infer this for herself, I led her to
believe that the existence and discovery of the conspiracy was of a
date long subsequent to my acceptance of the Sovereign's unwelcome
gift. She was deeply affected, and, as I had feared, exceedingly
disturbed. But, very characteristically, the keenest impression made
upon her mind concerned less the urgency of the peril than its origin,
the fact that it was incurred through and for her. On this she
insisted much more than seemed just or reasonable. It was for her
sake, no doubt, that I had made the Regent of Elcavoo my bitter,
irreconcilable foe. It was my marriage with her, the daughter of the
most eminent among the chiefs of the Zinta, that had marked me out as
one of the first and principal victims, and set on my head a value as
high as on that of any of the Order save the Arch-Enlightener himself,
whose personal character and social distinc