You will not betray me, Ylga. Neither will you sell Nais.""I seem to remember very small love for this same Nais just now," she said bitterly. "But you are right about that other matter. I shall not buy myself back at your expense. Oh, I am a fool, I know, and you can give me no thanks that I care about, but there is no other way I can act.""Then let us fritter no more time. Go you out now and find where Nais is gaoled, and bring me news how I can say ten words to her, and press a certain matter into her clasp."She bowed her head and left the chamber, and for long enough I was alone. I sat down on the couch, and rested wearily against the wall. My bones ached, my eyes ached, and most of all, my inwards ached. I had thought to myself that a man who makes his life sufficiently busy will find no leisure for these pains which assault frailer folk; but a philosophy like this, which carried one well in Yucatan, showed poorly enough when one tried it here at home. But that there was duty ahead, and the order of the High Council to be carried into effect, the bleakness of the prospect would have daunted me, and I would have prayed the Gods then to spare me further life, and take me unto Themselves.
Ylga came back at last, and I got up and went quickly after her as she led down a maze of passages and alleyways. "There has been no care spared over her guarding," she whispered, as we halted once to move a stone. "The officer of the guard is an old lover of mine, and I raised his hopes to the burning point again by a dozen words. But when I wanted to see his prisoner, there he was as firm as brass. I told him she was my sister, but that did not move him.
I offered him--oh, Deucalion, it makes me blush to think of the things I did offer to that man, but there was no stirring him. He has watched the tormentors so many times, that there is no tempting him into touch of their instruments.""If you have failed, why bring me out here?""Oh, I am not inveigling you into a lover's walk with myself, sir. You tickle yourself when you think your society is so pleasant as that.""Come, girl, tell me then what it is. If my temper is short, credit it against my weariness.""I have carried out my lord's commands in part. I know the cell where Nais lives, and I have had speech with her, though not through the door. And moreover, I have not seen her or touched her hand.""Your riddles are beyond me, Ylga, but if there is a chance, let us get on and have this business done.""We are at the place now," said she, with a hard little laugh, "and if you kneel on the floor, you will find an airshaft, and Nais will answer you from the lower end. For myself, I will leave you.
I have a delicacy in hearing what you want to say to my sister, Deucalion.""I thank you," I said. "I will not forget what you have done for me this night.""You may keep your thanks," she said bitterly, and walked away into the shadows.
I knelt on the floor of the gallery, and found the air passage with my hand, and then, putting my lips to it, whispered for Nais.
The answer came on the instant, muffled and quiet. "I knew my lord would come for a farewell.""What the Empress said, has to be. You understand, my dear?
It is for Atlantis."
"Have I reproached my lord, by word or glance?""I myself am bidden to place you in the hollow between the stones, and I must do it.""Then my last sleep will be a sweet one. I could not ask to be touched by pleasanter hands.""But it mayhap that a day will come when she whom you know of will be suffered by the High Gods to live on this land of Atlantis no longer.""If my lord will cherish my poor memory when he is free again, I shall be grateful. He might, if he chose, write them on the stones: Here was buried a maid who died gladly for the good of Atlantis, even though she knew that the man she so dearly loved was husband to her murderess.""You must not die," I whispered. "My breast is near broken at the very thought of it. And for respite, we must trust to the ancient knowledge, which in its day has been sent out from the Ark of the Mysteries."--I took the green waxy ball in my fingers, and stretched them down the crooked air-shaft to the full of my span.--"I have somewhat for you here. Reach up and try to catch it from me."I heard the faint rustle of her arm as it swept against the masonry, and then the ball was taken over into her grasp. Gods!
what a thrill went through me when the fingers of Nais touched mine! I could not see her, because of the crookedness of the shaft, but that faint touch of her was exquisite.
"I have it," she whispered. "And what now, dear?""You will hide the thing in your garment, and when to-morrow the upper stone closes down upon you and the light is gone, then you will take it between your lips and let it dissolve as it will.
Sleep will take you, my darling, then, and the High Gods will watch over you, even though centuries pass before you are roused.""If Deucalion does not wake me, I shall pray never again to open an eye. And now go, my lord and my dear. They watch me here constantly, and I would not have you harmed by being brought to notice.""Yes, I must go, my sweetheart. It will not do to have our scheme spoiled by a foolish loitering. May the most High Gods attend your rest, and if the sacrifice we make finds favour, may They grant us meeting here again on earth before we meet--as we must--when our time is done, and They take us up to Their own place.""Amen," she whispered back, and then: "Kiss your fingers, dear, and thrust them down to me."I did that, and for an instant felt her fondle them down the crook of the airshaft out of sight, and then heard her withdraw her little hand and kiss it fondly. Then again she kissed her own fingers and stretched them up, and I took up the virtue of that parting kiss on my finger-tips and pressed it sacredly to my lips.
"Living, sleeping, or dead, always my darling," she whispered.
And then, before I could answer, she whispered again: "Go, they are coming for me." And so I went, knowing that I could do no more to help her then, and knowing that all our schemes would be spilt if any eye spied upon me as I lay there beside the air shaft. But my chest was like to have split with the dull, helpless anguish that was in it, as I made my way back to my chamber through the mazy alleys of the pyramid.
"Do not look upon mine eyes, dear, when the time comes," had been her last command, "or they will tell a tale which Phorenice, being a woman, would read. Remember, we make these small denials, not for our own likings, but for Atlantis, which is mother to us all."
