Part 25 (2/2)

Sir Henry bent towards Nyleptha and whispered so that I could not catch, and then the Queen spoke

'Sorais, ever have I been a good sister to thee When our father died, and there was much talk in the land as to whether thou shouldst sit upon the throne with ave my voice for thee and said, ”Nay, let her sit She is tith me; ere born at a birth; wherefore should the one be preferred before the other?” And so has it ever been 'twixt thee and me, my sister But now thou knowest in what sort thou hast repaid me, but I have prevailed, and thy life is forfeit, Sorais And yet art thou ether ere little and loved each other ht we slept in the same cot with our arms each around the other's neck, and therefore even now does o out to thee, Sorais

'But not for that would I spare thy life, for thy offence has been too heavy; it doth drag down the ings of round

Also, while thou dost live the land will never be at peace

'Yet shalt thou not die, Sorais, because ed thy life of ive I it to hih thou dost love hih thou art lovely as the night in all her stars, O Lady of the Night, yet it is ive thy life to hi, and I do not think that I ever saw a man look more miserable than did Sir Henry at that , though true and forcible enough, was not altogether pleasant

'I understand,' sta at Good, 'I understood that he were attached--eh--attached to--to the Queen Sorais I as may be just now; but if they happened to be that way inclined, it has struck ht put a satisfactory end to an unpleasant business The lady also has ample private estates, where I am sure she would be at liberty to live unmolested as far as we are concerned, eh, Nyleptha? Of course, I only suggest'

'So far as I a to forget the past; and if the Lady of the Night thinksI will ood husband'

All eyes were now turned to Sorais, who stood with that same slow smile upon her beautiful face which I had noticed the first time that I ever saw her She paused a little while, and cleared her throat, and then thrice she curtseyed low, once to Nyleptha, once to Curtis, and once to Good, and began to speak in racious Queen and royal sister, for the loving-kindness thou hast shown me from my youth up, and especially in that thou hast been pleased to givethat is to be May prosperity, peace and plenty deck the life-path of one solorious Queen, and hold thy husband's love in both thy hands, and hters of thy beauty And I thank thee,that is to be--I thank thee a thousand tiift, and to pass it on to thy cowan Surely the act is worthy of thy greatness, my Lord Incubu And now, lastly, I thank thee also, ned to accept me and my poor beauty

I thank thee a thousand tiood and honest man, and I put my hand upon my heart and swear that I would that I could say thee ”yea” And now that I have rendered thanks to all in turn'--and again she smiled--'I will add one short word

'Little can you understand of me, Queen Nyleptha and my lords, if ye know not that for me there is no middle path; that I scorn your pity and hate you for it; that I cast off your forgiveness as though it were a serpent's sting; and that standing here, betrayed, deserted, insulted, and alone, I yet triumph over you, mock you, and defy you, one and all, and _thus_ I answer you' And then, of a sudden, before anybody guessed what she intended to do, she drove the little silver spear she carried in her hand into her side with such a strong and steady aih her back, and she fell prone upon the pavement

Nyleptha shrieked, and poor Good alht, while the rest of us rushed towards her But Sorais of the Night lifted herself upon her hand, and for a lorious eyes intently on Curtis' face, as though there were sohed, and with a sob her dark but splendid spirit passed

Well, they gave her a royal funeral, and there was an end of her

It was a reat ceremony was held in the Flower Te-Consort of Zu-Vendis I was too ill to go , with the crowds and the tru; but Good, as there (in his full-dress uniform), came back much impressed, and told me that Nyleptha had looked lovely, and Curtis had borne hiht royal fashi+on, and had been received with acclamations that left no doubt as to his popularity Also he toldin the procession, the populace had shouted '_Macumazahn, Macumazahn!_' till they were hoarse, and would only be appeased when he, Good, rose in his chariot and told them that I was too ill to be present

Afterwards, too, Sir Henry, or rather the King, ca that he had never been so bored in his life; but I dare say that that was a slight exaggeration It is not in huether bored on such an extraordinary occasion; and, indeed, as I pointed out to hi that a man, who but little reat country as an unknoanderer, should today be married to its beautiful and beloved Queen, and lifted, ath to exhort him in the future not to be carried away by the pride and pomp of absolute power, but always to strive to reentlereat and alht fairly have resented, he was so good as to receive with patience, and even to thankthem

It was immediately after this ceremony that I causedIt is a very pleasant country seat, situated about twoCity, on to which it looks

That was fiveconfined to a kind of couch, es from my journal and from our joint memories

It is probable that it will never be read, but it does not much matter whether it is or not; at any rate, it has served to while away , for I have suffered a deal of pain lately Thank God, however, there will not be much more of it

It is a week since I wrote the above, and now I take up my pen for the last time, for I know that the end is at hand My brain is still clear and I can , which has been very bad during the last week, has suddenly quite leftof nu And just as the pain has gone, so with it all fear of that end has departed, and I feel only as though I were going to sink into the arms of an unutterable rest Happily, contentedly, and with the same sense of security hich an infant lays itself to sleep in its el Death All the treh a life that see as I looked back upon it, have left me now; the storms have passed, and the Star of our Eternal Hope shi+nes clear and steady on the horizon that seeht

And so this is the end of it--a brief space of troubling, a few restless, fevered, anguished years, and then the arel Death Many times have I been near to them, and now it is my turn at last, and it is well Twenty-four hours one from me, and with it all its hopes and all its fears The air will close in over the space that my form filled and my place know etfulness will first dihtness of my memory, and then blot it out for ever, and of a truth I shall be dead So is it with us all How hts and been forgotten!--thousands upon thousands of years ago they thought the men of the dim past; and thousands on thousands of years hence will their descendants think theotten 'As the breath of the oxen in winter, as the quick star that runs along the sky, as a little shadow that loses itself at sunset,' as I once heard a Zulu called Ignosi put it, such is the order of our life, the order that passeth away

Well, it is not a good world--nobody can say that it is, save those ilfully blind theood in which Money is thestar? The wonder is not that it is so bad, but that there should be any good left in it