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Meanwhile, in the thick darkness of the hall below, while Von Glauben and De Launay were groping their way to the door which was cautiously held open by Sholto, Lotys, moving with hesitating steps down the stairs, felt rather than saw a head turned back upon her, a flash of eyes in the darkness, and heard her name breathed softly: "Lotys!"
"I do make way!" he said; "How can you doubt it? A word from me, and the massed millions would rise as one man!" "And of what use would that be?" enquired Lotys. "The soldiers would fire on the people, and there would be riot and bloodshed, but no actual redress for wrong. You work vainly, Sergius!" "If I could but kill the King!" he muttered. "Another king would succeed him," she said.
You have served their Cause, not because you love them, but simply because you love Me! and you would force me to become your wife, not because you love Me, so much as you love Yourself! Self alone is at the core of your social creed! Why, you are not a whit higher than the vulgarest millionaire that ever stole a people's Trade to further his own ends!" "Lotys!
Say, that because you were young and weak and impressionable, she chose you out to attempt the assassination. Do you hear?" "I hear!" The reply came thickly and almost inaudibly. "But must I tell these lies? I have never spoken to Sergius Thord in my life! nor to the woman Lotys; I know nothing of them or their followers, except by the public talk; why should I harm the innocent?
These bewildering and maddening thoughts coursed like fire through the brain of Sergius Thord, the while his eyes, grown suddenly dark and bloodshot, rested wonderingly on the tall upright figure of the monarch, standing quietly face to face with the blood-thirsty Revolutionary Committee, entirely unmoved by their fierce and lowering looks, and on Lotys, white, beautiful and breathless, kneeling at his feet!
He took from his pocket a ring, in which was set a fine brilliant of unusual size and lustre. She looked at it a moment as he held it out to her. "Oh, no," she faltered, "I cannot take it I cannot! Lotys dear, you know I cannot!" Lotys, thus appealed to, left her seat and came forward. Taking the ring from Leroy's hand, she examined it a moment, then gently returned it.
The vessel she sails in will be crushed like a shell in the teeth of the blast, and her body will sink like a stone in the angry sea! So will she sleep so does her brief power over the King come to an end!" Turning, she smiled at her lady-in-waiting, Teresa de Launay, who had also watched the sea funeral of Lotys with wondering and often tear- filled eyes.
Pequita's exquisite grace and agility had made her at once the fashion; the Opera was crowded nightly to see the 'wonderful child-dancer'; and valuable gifts and costly jewels were showered upon her, all of which she brought to Lotys, who advised her how to dispose of them best, and put by the money for the comfort and care of her father in the event of sickness, or the advance of age.
Wilder grew the night, and more tempestuous the sea, while the sky became a mountainous landscape of black and white clouds fitfully illumined by the moon, which appeared to run over their fleecy pinnacles and sable plains like some scared white creature pursued by invisible foes: The vessel on which the corpse of Lotys lay, palled in purple, and decked with flowers, flew over the waves, to all seeming with the same hunted rapidity as the moon rushed through the heavens, and so far, though her masts bent reed-like in the wind, and her sails strained at their cordage, she had come to no harm.
"Was that indeed your thought, Lotys," he asked gently, almost tenderly "Was it for our sakes and for us alone, that you saved the King?"
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