“Lady,” he said, repressing with an effort the passions which were surging within him, “I think that I have something to offer to the woman of my choice, and yet you put me aside as lightly as though I had neither name, nor power, nor station.  This, as it seems to me, can be read in one way only, that your heart is given elsewhere.”

“Have it as you will, King,” answered Elissa, “my heart is given elsewhere.”

“And yet, lady, not four suns gone you swore to me that you loved no man.  Since then it seems that you have learned to love, and swiftly, and it is yonder Jew whom you have chosen.”  And he pointed to the prince Aziel.

Again Elissa coloured, this time to the eyes, but she showed no other sign of confusion.

“May the king pardon me,” she said, “and may the prince Aziel, whose name has thus been coupled with mine, pardon me.  I said indeed that my heart was given elsewhere, but I did not say it was given to any man.  May not the heart of a mortal maid-priestess be given to the Ever-living?”

Now for a moment the king was silenced, while a murmur of applause at her ready wit went round the audience.  But before it died away a voice at the far end of the hall called out:—­

“Perchance the lady does not know that yonder in Egypt, and in Jerusalem also, prince Aziel is named the Ever-living.”

Now it was Elissa’s turn to be overcome.

“Nay, I knew it not,” she said; “how should I know it?  I spoke of that Dweller in the heavens whom I worship——­”

“And behold, the title fits a dweller on the earth whom you must also worship, for such omens do not come by chance,” cried the same voice, but from another quarter of the crowded hall.

“I ask pardon,” broke in Aziel, “and leave to speak.  It is true that owing to a certain birth-mark which I bear, among the Egyptians I have been given the bye-name of the Ever-living, but it is one which this lady can scarcely have heard, therefore jest no more upon a chance accident of words.  Moreover, if you be men, cease to heap insult upon a woman.  I who am almost a stranger here have not dared to ask the lady Elissa for her favour.”

“Ay, but you will ask and she will grant,” answered the same voice, the owner of which none could discover—­for he seemed to speak from every part of the chamber.

“Indeed,” went on Aziel, not heeding the interruption, “the last words between us were words of anger, for we quarrelled on a matter of religion.”

“What of that?” cried the voice; “love is the highest of religions, for do not the Phoenicians worship it?”

“Seize yonder knave,” shouted Sakon, and search was made but without avail.  Afterwards, however, Aziel remembered that once, when they were weather-bound on their journey from the coast, Metem had amused them by making his voice sound from various quarters of the hut in which they lay.  Then Ithobal rose and said:—­