Part 17

The word was passed and these things were done; and I too came out into the circus and joined the woman, who stood waiting under the moonlight. But the others who had seen these doings were by no means suited at the change of plan. One of the great stone valves of the farther door opened hurriedly, and a man strode out, armed and flushed. “By all the Gods!” he shouted. “Who comes between me and my pastime?”

I stepped quietly to the advance. “I fear, sir,” I said, “that you must launch your anger against me. By accident I gave that woman sanctuary, and I had not heart to toss her back to your beasts.”

His fingers began to snap against his hilt.

“You have come to the wrong market here with your qualms. I am captain here, and my word carries, subject only to Phorenice’s nod. Do you hear that? Do you know too that I can have you tossed to those striped gate-keepers of mine for meddling in here without an invitation?” He looked at me sharp enough, but saw plainly that I was a stranger. “But perhaps you carry a name, my man, which warrants your impertinence?”

“Deucalion is my poor name,” I said, “but I cannot expect you will know it. I am but newly landed here, sir, and when I left Atlantis some score of years back, a very different man to you held guard over these gates.” He had his forehead on my feet by this time. “I had it from the Empress this night that she will to-morrow make a new sorting of this kingdom’s dignities. Perhaps there is some recommendation you would wish me to lay before her in return for your courtesies?”

“My lord,” said the man, “if you wish it, I can have a turn with those cave-tigers myself now, and you can look on from behind the walls and see them tear me.”

“Why tell me what is no news?”

“I wish to remind my lord of his power; I wish to beg of his clemency.”

“You showed your power to these poor prisoners; but from what remains here to be seen, few of them have tasted much of your clemency.”

“The orders were,” said the captain of the gate, as though he thought a word might be said here for his defence, “the orders were, my lord, that the tigers should be kept fierce and accustomed to killing.”

“Then, if you have obeyed orders, let me be the last to chide you. But it is my pleasure that this woman be respited, and I wish now to question her.”

The man got to his feet again with obvious relief, though still bowing low.

“Then if my lord will honour me by sitting in my room that overlooks the outer gate, the favour will never be forgotten.”

“Show the way,” I said, and took the woman by the fingers, leading her gently. At the two ends of the circus the tigers prowled about on short chains, growling and muttering.

We passed through the door into the thickness of the outer wall, and the captain of the gate led us into his private chamber, a snug enough box overlooking the plain beyond the city. He lit a torch from his lamp and thrust it into a bracket on the wall, and bowing deeply and walking backwards, left us alone, closing the door in place behind him. He was an industrious fellow, this captain, to judge from the spoil with which his chamber was packed. There could have come very few traders in through that gate below without his levying a private tribute; and so, judging that most of his goods had been unlawfully come by, I had little qualm at making a selection. It was not decent that the woman, being an Atlantean, should go bereft of the dignity of clothes, as though she were a mere savage from Europe; and so I sought about amongst the captain’s spoil for garments that would be befitting.

But, as I busied myself in this search for raiment, rummaging amongst the heaps and bales, with a hand and eye little skilled in such business, I heard a sound behind which caused me to turn my head, and there was the woman with a dagger she had picked from the floor, in the act of drawing it from the sheath.

She caught my eye and drew the weapon clear, but seeing that I made no advance towards her, or move to protect myself, waited where she was, and presently was took with a shuddering.

“Your designs seem somewhat of a riddle,” I said. “At first you wished to kill me from motives which you explained, and which I quite understood. It lay in my power next to confer some small benefit upon you, in consequence of which you are here, and not--shall we say?--yonder in the circus. Why you should desire now to kill the only man here who can set you completely free, and beyond these walls, is a thing it would gratify me much to learn. I say nothing of the trifle of ingratitude. Gratitude and ingratitude are of little weight here. There is some far greater in your mind.”

She pressed a hand hard against her breasts. “You are Deucalion,” she gasped; “I heard you say it.”

“I am Deucalion. So far, I have known no reason to feel shame for my name.”

“And I come of those,” she cried, with a rising voice, “who bite against this city, because they have found their fate too intolerable with the land as it is ordered now. We heard of your coming from Yucatan. It was we who sent the fleet to take you at the entrance to the Gulf.”

“Your fleet gave us a pretty fight.”

“Oh, I know, I know. We had our watchers on the high land who brought us the tidings. We had an omen even before that. Where we lay with our army before the walls here, we saw great birds carrying off the slain to the mountains. But where the fleet failed, I saw a chance where I, a woman, might--”

“Where you might succeed?” I sat me down on a pile of the captain’s stuffs. It seemed as if here at last that I should find a solution for many things. “You carry a name?” I asked.

“They call me Nais.”

“Ah,” I said, and signed to her to take the clothes that I had sought out. She was curiously like, so both my eyes and hearing said, to Ylga, the fan-girl of Phorenice, but as she had told me of no parentage I asked for none then. Still her talk alone let me know that she was bred of none of the common people, and I made up my mind towards definite understanding. “Nais,” I said, “you wish to kill me. At the same time I have no doubt you wish to live on yourself, if only to get credit from your people for what you have done. So here I will make a contract with you. Prove to me that my death is for Atlantis’ good, and I swear by our Lord the Sun to go out with you beyond the walls, where you can stab me and then get you gone. Or the--”

“I will not be your slave.”

“I do not ask you for service. Or else, I wished to say, I shall live so long as the High Gods wish, and do my poor best for this country. And for you--I shall set you free to do your best also. So now, I pray you, speak.”