how could I clap my hands in their
Eastern fashion and summon the executioners to pierce those streaming
eyes of hers? "Rise, Augusta," I said, for in this extremity of her
shame I gave her back her title, "and tell me, you who are accustomed to
such matters, how I can spare you who deal with the lives of others as
well as with my own?"

"I thank you for that name," she said as she struggled to her feet.
"I've heard it shouted by tens of thousands in the circus and from the
throats of armies, but never yet has it been half so sweet to me as now
from lips that have no need to utter it. In times bygone I'd have paid
you for this service with a province, but now Irene is so poor that,
like some humble beggar-woman, she can but give her thanks. Still,
repeat it no more, for next time it will sound bitter. What did you ask?
How you could save me, was it not? Well, the thing seems simple. In all
that letter from Nicephorus there is no direct command that you should
blind me. The fellow says that you are to treat me as I treated you,
and as I treated Constantine, the Emperor--because I must. Well, I
imprisoned both of you. Imprison me and you fulfil the mandate. He says
that if I die you are to report it, which shows that he does not mean
that I _must_ die. Oh! the road of escape is easy, should you desire
to travel it. If you do not so desire, then, Olaf, I pray you as a last
favour not to hand me over to common men. I see that by your side still
hangs that red sword of yours wherewith once I threatened you when you
refused me at Byzantium. Draw it, Olaf, and this time I'll guide its
edge across my throat. So you will please Nicephorus and win the rewards
that Irene can no longer give. Baptised in her blood, what earthly glory
is there to which you might not yet attain, you who had dared to lay
hands upon the anointed flesh that even her worst foes have feared to
touch lest God's sudden curse should strike them dead?"

So she went on pouring out words with the strange eloquence that she
could command at times, till I grew bewildered. She who had lived in
light and luxury, who had loved the vision of all bright and glorious
things, was pleading for her sight to the man whom she had robbed of
sight that he might never more behold the young beauty of her rival. She
who had imagination to know the greatness of her sins was pleading to
be spared the death she dared not face. She was pleading to me, who for
years had been her fait