they will reap, not perhaps here, but after death
as they shall have sown; that if they do not forfeit the promise by
their own deed, they shall rejoin hereafter those dearest to them
here."

"There are such?" he said. "I would they were known to me. I had not
dreamed that there were in my realm men who would screen the heart of
another with their own palm."

"Prince," I replied earnestly, "I as their ambassador as one of their
leaders, appeal to you to know and to protect them. They can defend
themselves at need, and, it may be, might prevail though matched one
against a thousand. For their weapons are those against which no
distance, no defences, no numbers afford protection. But in such a
strife many of their lives must be lost, and infinite suffering and
havoc wrought on foes they would willingly spare. They are threatened
with extermination by secret spite or open force; but open force will
be the last resort of enemies well aware that those who strike at the
Star have ever been smitten by the lightning."

A slight change in his countenance satisfied me that the Emblem was
not unknown to him.

"You say," he replied, "that there is an organised scheme to destroy
these people by force or fraud?"

"The scheme, Prince, was confessed in my own hearing by one of its
instruments; and in proof thereof, my own life, as a Chief of the
Order, was attempted this morning."

The Prince sprang to his feet in all the passion of a man who for the
first time receives a personal insult; of an Autocrat stung to the
quick by an unprecedented outrage to his authority and dignity.

"Who has dared?" he said. "Who has taken on himself to make law, or
form plans for carrying out old law, without my leave? Who has dared
to strike at the life over which I have cast the shadow of my throne?
Give me their names, my guest, and, before the evening mist closes in
to-morrow, pronounce their doom."

"I cannot obey your royal command. I have no proof against the only
man who, to my knowledge, can desire my death. Those who actually and
immediately aimed at my life are shielded by the inviolable weakness
of sex from the revenge and even the justice of manhood."

"Each man," returned the Prince, but partially conceiving my meaning,
"is master at home. I wish I were satisfied that your heart will let
you deal justly and wisely with the most hateful offspring of the most
hateful of living races--a woman who betrays the life of her lord. But