"How beautiful you are," she said simply.
Jane smiled, sadly; for she had found that beauty may be a curse.
"That is indeed a compliment," she replied quickly, "from one so radiant as the Princess O-lo-a."
"Ah!" exclaimed the princess delightedly; "you speak my language! I was told that you were of another race and from some far land of which we of Pal-ul-don have never heard."
"Lu-don saw to it that the priests instructed me," explained Jane; "but I am from a far country, Princess; one to which I long to return—and I am very unhappy."
"But Ko-tan, my father, would make you his queen," cried the girl; "that should make you very happy."
"But it does not," replied the prisoner; "I love another to whom I am already wed. Ah, Princess, if you had known what it was to love and to be forced into marriage with another you would sympathize with me."
The Princess O-lo-a was silent for a long moment. "I know," she said at last, "and I am very sorry for you; but if the king's daughter cannot save herself from such a fate who may save a slave woman? for such in fact you are."
The drinking in the great banquet hall of the palace of Ko-tan, king of Pal-ul-don had com-
