roused from pleasant dreams by a sudden dash
of cold water in your face, you may partially comprehend my emotions
upon hearing these words of greeting, and realizing that I was looking
into the beautiful, pitiless eyes of the Daughter of the Sun, now
sitting upright on the couch, happily smiling at my embarrassment.

"Nay, Geoffrey Benteen," she exclaimed, significantly waving her white
hand as she noted my swift glance backward, "retire not thus suddenly.
You must be a marvellous woodsman to have attained this place through
the watchful cordon of my guards, but 'tis not likely you would so
safely run the gantlet of return. You are not so fair of visage as
your gay companion the Chevalier, yet now you are here I will enjoy a
short time with you. Yet first let us understand each other. For what
purpose do you invade my apartment so boldly?"

"I came," I replied, believing frankness would prove my best play in
this crisis, "expecting to find not you, but your prisoner."

"Ah! you are honest, if not complimentary," a quick flash of
understanding in her bright eyes. "So it was another woman for whose
sake you came creeping recklessly through the night! God's mercy! I
even ventured to dream my charms had pierced the dull armor of your
cold English heart, yet here you merely stand and laugh at me,--would
even flee my presence as though pestilence were upon my breath. Why, I
wonder? am I not also fair? Why then flout me thus disdainfully?
Naladi has not been accustomed to such harsh treatment at the hands of
your sex."

"You are, indeed, beautiful both in form and face," I answered, seeking
to avoid quarrel, "but it is not for a mere adventurer of the woods to
utter words of love to such as you."

Her lips curled in sarcastic smile.

"Pish! you grow marvellously modest all at once. I bid you note that
the passion of love cares nothing for a registry of birth--it looks to
flesh and blood, not records. There is more hidden in your secret
heart to-night than finds utterance upon the lips. You have the soft
speech of a diplomat, full of guile and cunning. Come, I bid you tell
me the whole truth. Do you think me an untutored savage, that you deny
me in such disdain?"

"I know not how it may prove regarding your heart," I said boldly, not
hesitating to meet her questioning eyes, "but in manner and graces you
exhibit the gloss of courts."

She smiled mockingly, rising to her feet and saluting me with a low
curt