"You will set me free," she said, regarding me from under her brows, "without any further exactions or treaty?""I will set you free exactly on those terms," I answered, "unless indeed we here decide that it is better for Atlantis that I should die, in which case the freedom will be of your own taking.""My lord plays a bold game.""Tut, tut," I said.
"But I shall not hesitate to take the full of my bond, unless my theories are most clearly disproved to me.""Tut," I said, "you women, how you can play out the time needlessly. Show me sufficient cause, and you shall kill me where and how you please. Come, begin the accusation.""You are a tyrant.""At least I have not paraded my tyrannies in Atlantis these twenty years. Why, Nais, I did but land yesterday.""You will not deny you came back from Yucatan for a purpose.""I came back because I was sent for. The Empress gives no reasons for her recalls. She states her will; and we who serve her obey without question.""Pah, I know that old dogma.""If you discredit my poor honesty at the outset like this, Ifear we shall not get far with our unravelling.""My lord must be indeed simple," said this strange woman scornfully, "if he is ignorant of what all Atlantis knows.""Then simple you must write me down. Over yonder in Yucatan we were too well wrapped up in our own parochial needs and policies to have leisure to ponder much over the slim news which drifted out to us from Atlantis--and, in truth, little enough came. By example, Phorenice (whose office be adored) is a great personage here at home; but over there in the colony we barely knew so much as her name. Here, since I have been ashore, I have seen many new wonders; I have been carried by a riding mammoth; I have sat at a banquet; but in what new policies there are afoot, I have yet to be schooled.""Then, if truly you do not know it, let me repeat to you the common tale. Phorenice has tired of her unmated life.""Stay there. I will hear no word against the Empress.""Pah, my lord, your scruples are most decorous. But I did no more than repeat what the Empress had made public by proclamation.
She is minded to take to herself a husband, and nothing short of the best is good enough for Phorenice. One after another has been put up in turn as favourite--and been found wanting. Oh, I tell you, we here in Atlantis have watched her courtship with jumping hearts. First it was this one here, then it was that one there;now it was this general just returned from a victory, and a day later he had been packed back to his camp, to give place to some dashing governor who had squeezed increased revenues from his province. But every ship that came from the West said that there was a stronger man than any of these in Yucatan, and at last the Empress changed the wording of her vow. 'I'll have Deucalion for my husband,' said she, 'and then we will see who can stand against my wishes.'""The Empress (whose name be adored) can do as she pleases in such matters," I said guardedly; "but that is beside the argument.
I am here to know how it would be better for Atlantis that I should die?""You know you are the strongest man in the kingdom.""It pleases you to say so.""And Phorenice is the strongest woman."
"That is beyond doubt."
"Why, then, if the Empress takes you in marriage, we shall be under a double tyranny. And her rule alone is more cruelly heavy than we can bear already.""I pass no criticism on Phorenice's rule. I have not seen it.
But I crave your mercy, Nais, on the newcomer into this kingdom.
I am strong, say you, and therefore I am a tyrant, say you. Now to me this sequence is faulty.""Who should a strong man use strength for, if not for himself?
And if for himself, why that spells tyranny. You will get all your heart's desires, my lord, and you will forget that many a thousand of the common people will have to pay for them.""And this is all your accusation?""It seems to be black enough. I am one that has a compassion for my fellow-men, my lord, and because of that compassion you see me what I am to-day. There was a time, not long passed, when Islept as soft and ate as dainty as any in Atlantis."I smiled. "Your speech told me that much from the first.""Then I would I had cast the speech off, too, if that is also a livery of the tyrant's class. But I tell you I saw all the oppression myself from the oppressor's side. I was high in Phorenice's favour then.""That, too, is easy of credence. Ylga is the fan-girl to the Empress now, and second lady in the kingdom, and those who have seen Ylga could make an easy guess at the parentage of Nais.""We were the daughters of one birth; but I do not count with either Zaemon or Ylga now. Ylga is the creature of Phorenice, and Phorenice would have all the people of Atlantis slaves and in chains, so that she might crush them the easier. And as for Zaemon, he is no friend of Phorenice's; he fights with brain and soul to drag the old authority to those on the Sacred Mountain; and that, if it come down on us again, would only be the exchange of one form of slavery for another.""It seems to me you bite at all authority.""In fact," she said simply, "I do. I have seen too much of it.""And so you think a rule of no-rule would be best for the country?""You have put it plainly in words for me. That is my creed to-day. That is the creed of all those yonder, who sit in the camp and besiege this city. And we number on our side, now, all in Atlantis save those in the city and a handful on the priests'
Mountain."
I shook my head. "A creed of desperation, if you like, Nais, but, believe me, a silly creed. Since man was born out of the quakings and the fevers of this earth, and picked his way amongst the cooler-places, he has been dependent always on his fellow-men.
