between the fingers a ring.

I knew it at once; it was Sheba's ring which Maqueda had lent to me in
proof of her good faith when I journeyed for help to England. This ring,
it will be remembered, we returned to her with much ceremony at our
first public audience. Oliver grew pale at the sight of it.

"How did you come by this?" he asked hoarsely. "Is she who alone may
wear it dead?"

"Yes, yes," answered the voice, a feigned voice as I thought. "The Child
of Kings whom you knew is dead, and having no more need for this ancient
symbol of her power, she bequeathed it to you whom she remembered kindly
at the last."

Oliver covered his face with his hands and turned away.

"But," went on the speaker slowly, "the woman Maqueda whom once it is
said you loved----"

He dropped his hands and stared.

"----the woman Maqueda whom once it is said you--loved--still lives."

Then the hood slipped back, and in the glow of the rising sun we saw the
face beneath.

It was that of Maqueda herself!

A silence followed that in its way was almost awful.

"My Lord Oliver," asked Maqueda presently, "do you accept my offering of
Queen Sheba's ring?"

NOTE BY MAQUEDA

Once called Walda Nagasta and Takla Warda, that is, Child of Kings and
Bud of the Rose, once also by birth Ruler of the Abati people, the Sons
of Solomon and Sheba.

I, Maqueda, write this by the command of Oliver, my lord, who desires
that I should set out certain things in my own words.

Truly all men are fools, and the greatest of them is Oliver, my lord,
though perhaps he is almost equalled by the learned man whom the Abati
called Black Windows, and by the doctor, Son of Adam. Only he who is
named Roderick, child of Adam, is somewhat less blind, because having
been brought up among the Fung and other people of the desert, he has
gathered a little wisdom. This I know because he has told me that he
alone saw through my plan to save all their lives, but said nothing of
it because he desired to escape from Mur, where certain death waited on
him and his companions. Perhaps, however, he lies to please me.

Now, for the truth of the matter, which not being skilled in writing I
will tell briefly.

I was carried out of the cave city with my lord and the others,
starving, starving, too weak to kill myself, which otherwise I would
have done rather than fall into the hands of my accursed uncle, Joshua.
Yet I was stronger than the rest, because as I have learned, t