slept. To the eye was beauty, beyond were
desolation and death. Pride, hatred, and envy, encircled her soul. She
was sold unto evil, even as her father was. The spirit of destruction,
in answer to her father's prayer, had formed her a beautiful destroyer.
Whatsoever was lovely that she looked upon in envy, withered as though
an east wind passed over it--the destroying wind which blighteth the
hopes of the husbandman.

At the going down of the sun, the king, and his fair queen, Bethoc, with
his mighty men, drew near to the tower which Ida had built on the
mountain-rock, and all the people of the city came forth to meet him,
and to greet their queen.

The bards lifted up their voice; they styled her the fairest of women.

"Fair is the wife of the king," replied an aged thane, "but fairer is
Agitha, his daughter! Bethoc, the queen, is a bright star, but Agitha is
the star of the morning--fairest of the heavens!"

Queen Bethoc heard the words of the aged thane, and she hated Agitha
because of them. The spirit of evil spread his darkness over her soul.
He filled her breast with the poison of asps, her eyes with the venom of
the adder that lures to destruction.

At the entrance of the tower of kings stood Agitha, lovely as the
spirits that dwell among the stars, and give beauty to the beings of
earth. She knelt before the queen. She offered her a daughter's homage.

"Rise, beautiful one! inspirer of song!" said the queen; "kneel not to
me, for I am but a star--thou art the star of the morning. Hide not thy
face from before men. Let them serve and worship thee."

Cold were her words as water which droppeth from the everlasting
icicles in the caves of the north. As is the mercy of the tears of the
crocodile, so was the kindness of her looks. Envy and hatred gleamed in
her eyes, like lightnings round the sides of a dark cloud.

The countenance of Agitha fell; for she knew that her father in his
wrath was fiercer than the wild boar of the forest when at bay; and she
feared to reply to the sneer of the wife in whom his eyes delighted.

Queen Bethoc, the daughter of Gormack, knew that men said she was less
beautiful than Agitha, the daughter of the king. When they walked by the
clear fountains or the crystal brooks together, the fountains and the
brooks whispered to her the words which men spoke--"Agitha is the most
lovely." Therefore did the queen hate Agitha with a great and deadly
hatred. As the sleuth-hound seeketh it