“How did this chance?” asked the Hesea of Atene.

“My lord was mad,” she answered boldly, “and such was his cruel sport.”

“So.  And was thy lord jealous also?  Nay, keep back the falsehood I see rising to thy lips.  Leo Vincey, answer thou me.  Yet, I will not ask thee to lay bare the secrets of a woman who has offered thee her love.  Thou, Holly, speak, and let it be the truth.”

“It is this, O Hes,” I answered.  “Yonder lady and her uncle the Shaman Simbri saved us from death in the waters of the river that bounds the precipices of Kaloon.  Afterwards we were ill, and they treated us kindly, but the Khania became enamoured of my foster-son.”

Here the figure of the Priestess stirred beneath its gauzy wrappings, and the Voice asked—­“And did thy foster-son become enamoured of the Khania, as being a man he may well have done, for without doubt she is fair?”

“He can answer that question for himself, O Hes.  All I know is that he strove to escape from her, and that in the end she gave him a day to choose between death and marriage with her, when her lord should be dead.  So, helped by the Khan, her husband, who was jealous of him, we fled towards this Mountain, which we desired to reach.  Then the Khan set his hounds upon us, for he was mad and false-hearted.  We killed him and came on in spite of this lady, his wife, and her uncle, who would have prevented us, and were met in a Place of Bones by a certain veiled guide, who led us up the Mountain and twice saved us from death.  That is all the story.”

“Woman, what hast thou to say?” asked the Hesea in a menacing voice.

“But little,” Atene answered, without flinching.  “For years I have been bound to a madman and a brute, and if my fancy wandered towards this man and his fancy wandered towards me—­well, Nature spoke to us, and that is all.  Afterwards it seems that he grew afraid of the vengeance of Rassen, or this Holly, whom I would that the hounds had torn bone from bone, grew afraid.  So they strove to escape the land, and perchance wandered to thy Mountain.  But I weary of this talk, and ask thy leave to rest before to-morrow’s rite.”

“Thou sayest, Atene,” said the Hesea, “that Nature spoke to this man and to thee, and that his heart is thine; but that, fearing thy lord’s vengeance, he fled from thee, he who seems no coward.  Tell me, then, is that tress he hides in the satchel on his breast thy gage of love to him?”

“I know nothing of what he hides in the satchel,” answered the Khania sullenly.

“And yet, yonder in the Gatehouse when he lay so sick he set the lock against thine own—­ah, dost remember now?”

“So, O Hes, already he has told thee all our secrets, though they be such as most men hide within their breasts;” and she looked contemptuously at Leo.

“I told her nothing of the matter, Khania,” Leo said in an angry voice.