Then, Khania,
I said, such servants and such mistresses are ill to meddle with. Say, what answer has the Hesea sent to your report of our coming to this land?
Listen,
broke in Leo before she could reply. I go to ask a certain question of the Oracle on yonder mountain peak. With your will or without it I tell you that I go, and afterwards you can settle which is the stronger—the Khania of Kaloon or the Hesea of the House of Fire.
Atene listened and for a while stood silent, perhaps because she had no answer. Then she said with a little laugh—
Is that your will ? Well, I think that yonder are none whom you would wish to wed. There is fire and to spare, but no lovely, shameless spirit haunts it to drive men mad with evil longings;
and as though at some secret thought, a spasm of pain crossed her face and caught her breath. Then she went on in the same cold voice—
Wanderers, this land has its secrets, into which no foreigner must pry. I say to you yet again that while I live you set no foot upon that Mountain. Know also, Leo Vincey, I have bared my heart to you, and I have been told in answer that this long quest of yours is not for me, as I was sure in my folly, but, as I think, for some demon wearing the shape of woman, whom you will never find. Now I make no prayer to you; it is not fitting, but you have learned too much.
Therefore, consider well to-night and before next sundown answer. Having offered, I do not go back, and to-morrow you shall tell me whether you will take me when the time comes, as come it must, and rule this land and be great and happy in my love, or whether, you and your familiar together, you will—die. Choose then between the vengeance of Atene and her love, since I am not minded to be mocked in my own land as a wanton who sought a stranger and was—refused.
Slowly, slowly, in an intense whisper she spoke the words, that fell one by one from her lips like drops of
