ding there like some solitary survivor of
a massacre. As it did so a long string of guards began to defile from a
passage to the left, and ranged themselves on either side of the dais.
Then followed about a score of male mutes, then as many women mutes
bearing lamps, and then a tall white figure, swathed from head to foot,
in whom I recognised _She_ herself. She mounted the dais and sat down
upon the chair, and spoke to me in _Greek_, I suppose because she did
not wish those present to understand what she said.

"Come hither, oh Holly," she said, "and sit thou at my feet, and see me
do justice on those who would have slain thee. Forgive me if my Greek
doth halt like a lame man; it is so long since I have heard the sound of
it that my tongue is stiff, and will not bend rightly to the words."

I bowed, and, mounting the dais, sat down at her feet.

"How hast thou slept, my Holly?" she asked.

"I slept not well, oh Ayesha!" I answered with perfect truth, and with
an inward fear that perhaps she knew how I had passed the heart of the
night.

"So," she said, with a little laugh; "I, too, have not slept well. Last
night I had dreams, and methinks that thou didst call them to me, oh
Holly."

"Of what didst thou dream, Ayesha?" I asked indifferently.

"I dreamed," she answered quickly, "of one I hate and one I love," and
then, as though to turn the conversation, she addressed the captain of
her guard in Arabic: "Let the men be brought before me."

The captain bowed low, for the guard and her attendants did not
prostrate themselves, but had remained standing, and departed with his
underlings down a passage to the right.

Then came a silence. _She_ leaned her swathed head upon her hand and
appeared to be lost in thought, while the multitude before her continued
to grovel upon their stomachs, only screwing their heads round a little
so as to get a view of us with one eye. It seemed that their Queen
so rarely appeared in public that they were willing to undergo this
inconvenience, and even graver risks, to have the opportunity of looking
on her, or rather on her garments, for no living man there except myself
had ever seen her face. At last we caught sight of the waving of lights,
and heard the tramp of men coming along the passage, and in filed the
guard, and with them the survivors of our would-be murderers, to the
number of twenty or more, on whose countenances a natural expression of
sullenness struggled with the terr