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Updated: June 9, 2025
I remembered that I had heard this bay when we sat in the boat upon the river and saw that poor noble done to death for the crime of loving the Khania. As the hunt passed us then I observed that it burst from the throat of the leading hound, a huge brute, red in colour, with a coal-black ear, fangs that gleamed like ivory, and a mouth which resembled a hot oven.
"Oros, lead the Khania hither and be swift." The priest turned and walking quickly to the wooden doors by which we had entered the shrine, vanished there. "Now," said Leo to me nervously in the silence that followed, and speaking in English, "now I wish we were somewhere else, for I think that there will be trouble."
The government, if so it could be called, was, on the whole, of a mild though of a very despotic nature, and vested in an hereditary Khan or Khania, according as a man or a woman might be in the most direct descent. Of religions there were two, that of the people, who worshipped the Spirit of the Fire Mountain, and that of the rulers, who believed in magic, ghosts and divinations.
I have heard the Khania, the last of the true blood, the first in the land, the proud princess who will not let her robes be soiled by those of the 'ladies of the court' and my wife, my wife, who asked me to marry her mark that, you strangers because I was her cousin and a rival ruler, and the richest lord in all the land, and thereby she thought she would increase her power I have heard her offer herself to a nameless wanderer with a great yellow beard, and I have heard him, who hates and would escape from her" here he screamed with laughter "refuse her in such a fashion as I would not refuse the lowest woman in the palace.
In a second the attempt had been made and failed, so quickly indeed that it was not until Leo and I compared our impressions afterwards that we could be sure of what had happened. As Ayesha passed her, the maddened Khania drew a hidden dagger and struck with all her force at her rival's back.
Moreover, the present Khania, our hostess, was the last of the direct line of rulers, her husband and cousin having less of the blood royal in his veins, and as such the people were attached to her. Also, as is commonly the case with bold and beautiful women, she was popular among them, especially as she was just and very liberal to the poor.
Then he spoke again in his broken, stumbling Greek, "You are the lady who saved me from the water. Say, are you also that queen whom I have sought so long and endured so much to find?" "I know not," she answered in a voice as sweet as honey, a low, trembling voice; "but true it is I am a queen if a Khania be a queen." "Say, then, Queen, do you remember me?"
Ah! you are married, lady, are you not?" "Aye," she answered, her face flushing. "And I will tell you what you soon must learn, if you have not learned it already, I am the wife of a madman, and he is hateful to me." "I have earned the last already, Khania." She looked at me with her piercing eyes. "What! Did my uncle, the Shaman, he who is called Guardian, tell you?
Show us what thou art, thou flitting night-owl, who thinkest to frighten me with that livery of death, which only serves to hide the death within." "Cease, I pray lady, cease," said Oros, stirred for once out of his imperturbable calm. "She is the Minister, none other, and with her goes the Power." "Then it goes not against Atene, Khania of Kaloon," she answered, "or so I think. Power, forsooth!
"I can quite believe it," I answered. "I can believe anything. Leo, I say that we are but gnats meshed in a web, and yonder Khania is the spider and Simbri the Shaman guards the net. But tell me all you remember of what has happened to you, and be quick, for I do not know how long they may leave us alone."
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