the will awakened from its
lethargy, and a god-like strength and force seemed to spring into life,
held in check but for a moment, as the increased vigilance of sense bade
him watch yet a little longer.

With breath reeking of drink, with bloodshot eyes and reeling step, the
satyr entered. Yet so great was the spell and charm of that womanly
purity and dauntless pride, that even lust and tyranny sank abashed on
the threshold, and a certain shame and hesitancy were visible in the
flushed face and bloodshot eyes.

"Why are you here?" asked the woman calmly. "Have you mistaken your
way?"

"No,"--and the intruder advanced with sudden boldness. "I have come to
ask if you are still of the same mind--still intent on destroying your
_friends_." His laugh rang out mockingly. "Fine friends truly for a
Princess Zairoff. I gave you till to-night--come, which is to be
sacrificed--your womanly scruples, or the five hundred lives you have
fooled into security?"

Then she sprang to her feet, a statue no longer, but a living,
passionate woman.

"I have borne enough," she cried. "Beware how you tempt the power that
has been strong enough to keep me from you all these years. Beware,
too, how, once again, you stain your soul with innocent blood.
Thousands of voices are crying against you even now. Thousands of years
of suffering on your part will not avail to buy you peace in the future.
I have prayed for these unfortunates, I have begged their lives at your
hands on my very knees. Do not tempt me too far. I say again--you do
not know what it is you do."

He laughed brutally. "I know," he said, "that you shall pay for their
lives, or sacrifice them. I have waited long enough. I am sick of
hearing men rave about your beauty, and feeling that that beauty is no
more to me than if I were a beggar at my own gates."

"Do you forget," she said solemnly, "the compact we made? I am not at
any man's choice, or disposal. My life has a mission to accomplish, and
you, with all your brutal desires and evil passions, cannot turn that
life from its destined purpose. Do not forget the warnings you have
already received."

So beautiful she looked, standing there in her floating, snowy
draperies, with her solemn, mysterious eyes fixed upon that sullen,
lowering face. Beautiful and mysterious as some vestal priestess
defending the secrets of her Order. But that beauty, for once, seemed
less to subjugate than to inflame the evil d