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His eyes were fixed on some one who stood towering before the dais, like the old prints of the avenging goddesses. Clad in the hideous stripes which boards of directors consider de rigueur for the soul that is to be won back to the normal, stood the woman Elissa, who, by all counts of Prince Tabnit, should have been singing a hymn with Mrs.
That night, when the darkness fell, the sky behind these travellers grew red with fire. "Behold the end of the golden city!" said Metem. "Zimboe is food for flames and its children for the sword. Issachar was a prophet indeed, who foretold that it should be so." Aziel bowed his head, remembering that Issachar had foretold also that for Elissa and for him there was hope beyond the grave.
When he entered the hall Mesa was seated upon a canvas stool, a little apart from the others, her chin resting upon her hand, staring with an evil look towards the place where Elissa was enthroned. Nor did her face grow more gentle at the sight of the cunning merchant, for she knew well it was through his plots and bribery that she had been ousted from her mother's place.
She turned from him, confronting the pale, eager faces of the people; and in her beauty and distinction she was like Olivia's women, crowded beside the dais. "Men and women of Yaque," cried Elissa, "I will tell you to what 'supreme estate' these friends whom you seek have long been raised.
But if you accept them, I will sign a bond under which if within eight days I do not make it impossible for the prince Aziel to marry the lady Elissa, you may reclaim so much of the gold as I do not prove to you to have been spent upon your service, and no bond of Metem the Phoenician was ever yet dishonoured.
For the Baaltis to be found with any man who was not her husband meant death to him and her, a doom from which there was little chance of escape. Well, to his own fate he was almost indifferent, but for Elissa and Issachar he mourned bitterly. Truly the Levite and Metem had been wise when they cautioned him, for her sake and his own, to have nothing to do with a priestess of Baal.
After a long and solemn pause, at a sign from the Shadid, he who had been the husband of the dead Baaltis, the veil was removed from Elissa. At once she turned, looked at Aziel, and smiled sadly. "Do you know the fate that waits us?" the prince asked of Issachar in Hebrew.
"It seems that you saw and heard these things, Issachar," said Aziel, setting his face sternly. "Now hear this further, and then I pray you give me peace on this matter of the lady Elissa: If in any way it is possible, I shall make her my wife, and if it be not possible, then for so long as she may live at least I will look upon no other woman."
If your God can be angry with you for burning a pinch of dust to save a woman, who at the least has dared much for you, then give me Baal, for he is less cruel." Now Aziel looked towards him who held the bowl of incense. But Elissa who all this while had stood silent, stepped forward and spoke:
At length he was seen returning. Pushing his way through the crowd, he mounted the platform, and said: "The daughter of Sakon speaks truth; alas! the lady Baaltis is dead." Elissa sighed in relief, for had her tidings proved false she could scarcely have hoped to escape the fury of the crowd.
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