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"The gossips of Zimboe are censorious, and might misinterpret this moonlight meeting, as indeed would Sakon and Issachar. Well, doves will coo and maids will woo, and unless I can make money out of it the affair is none of mine." "Have I not told you that there is no question of wooing?" asked the prince angrily.
At some sign from the governor, they whispered, the captains of the guard were already hastening from the hall. "So be it, Sakon," he said. "To-night I camp without your walls, which are no longer safe for one who has threatened war against them, and on the eighth day from this see to it that your heralds being me the Lady Elissa and peace or I make good my threat. Till then, farewell."
"How are you named, lady?" he said presently, adding "or rather I need not ask; you are Elissa, the daughter of Sakon, Governor of Zimboe, are you not?" "I am so called, though how you know it I cannot guess." "I heard you name yourself, lady, in the prayer you made before the altar." "You heard my prayer, Prince?" she said starting.
King, you have our answer." "Not all of it, Sakon. How of that first condition that Lady Elissa the fair, your daughter, should be given me to wife?" "King, it cannot be, for the gods of heaven have taken this matter from our hands, anointing the lady Elissa their high-priestess."
"Abandon it not, Prince," interrupted Metem, "seeing that if you do it will certainly end in my death, for the girl is mad, and will have her way. Or if she does not, then I must pay the price." "Have no fear," answered Aziel smiling. "Issachar, this must be done or " "Or what, Prince?" "I will not leave the city. It is true that Sakon may thrust me from it, but it shall be as a dead man.
"Is he also an envoy from Zimboe?" "Nay, King," answered the prince laughing, "but my grandsire, the mighty ruler of Israel, charged me always to take note of the ways of savages in peace and war, that I might learn how to deal with them. Therefore, I sought leave to accompany Sakon upon this embassy." "Peace, peace!" broke in Sakon. "This is no time for gibes.
So be it; but thief or no thief, I say that there is a blood feud between me and the man who slew him, and were he great Solomon himself, instead of one of fifty princelets of his line, he should pay bitterly for the dead. To-morrow, Sakon, I will meet you before I leave for my own land, for I have words to speak to you.
An hour later the Phoenician stood in the palace of the gods, demanding, under permit from Sakon, governor of the city, to be admitted into the presence of the Baaltis, to whom he desired to sell certain sacred images cunningly fashioned in gold.
Thereon Sakon, her father, and Aziel blessed him, but Issachar said nothing. As the Phoenician was walking through the market-place early on the next day an aged black woman, whom he did not know, accosted him, saying that she had a message for his ear from the king Ithobal who was camped without the city and who desired to see the merchandise that he had brought with him from the coasts of Tyre.
It is true that there are some good soldiers in the city, but they are foreign mercenaries; and as for the rest, half-breeds and freed slaves, they belong as much to Ithobal as to Sakon, and are not to be trusted. No, no; let us stay behind our walls, for they at least were built when men were honest and will not betray us."
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