, "but learn that
he who lies dead before us by your hand--as you say--was no slave to be
killed at pleasure, but a man of rank, none other, indeed, than the son
of my mother's sister."

"Is it so?" replied Aziel, "then surely, King, you are well rid of a
cousin, however highly born, who made it his business to ravish maidens
from their homes."

By way of answer to these words Ithobal sprang from his seat again,
laying hand upon his sword. But before he could speak or draw it, the
governor Sakon addressed him in a cold and meaning voice:--

"Of your courtesy, King," he said, "remember that the prince here is my
guest, as you are, and give us peace. If that dead man was your cousin,
at least he well deserved to die, not at the hand of one of royal blood,
but by that of the executioner, for he was the worst of thieves--a thief
of women. Now tell me, King, I pray you, how came your cousin here, so
far from home, since he was not numbered in your retinue?"

"I do not know, Sakon," answered Ithobal, "and if I knew I would not
say. You tell me that my dead kinsman was a thief of women, which, in
Phoenician eyes, must be a crime indeed. So be it; but thief or no thief,
I say that there is a blood feud between me and the man who slew him,
and were he great Solomon himself, instead of one of fifty princelets of
his line, he should pay bitterly for the dead. To-morrow, Sakon, I will
meet you before I leave for my own land, for I have words to speak
to you. Till then, farewell!"--and rising, he strode down the hall,
followed by his officers and guard.

*****

The sudden departure of king Ithobal in anger was the signal for the
breaking up of the feast.

"Why is that half-bred chief so wrath with me?" asked Aziel in a low
voice of Elissa as they followed Sakon to another chamber.

"Because--if you would know the truth--he set his dead cousin to kidnap
me, and you thwarted him," she answered, looking straight before her.

Aziel made no reply, for at that moment Sakon turned to speak with him,
and his face was anxious.

"I crave your pardon, Prince," he said, drawing him aside, "that you
should have met with such insults at my board. Had it been any other man
who spoke thus to you, by now he had rued his words, but this Ithobal
is the terror of our city, for if he chooses he can bring a hundred
thousand savages upon us, shutting us within our walls to starve,
and cutting us off from the working of the mines whence we win