Part 9 (1/2)

And bustling up to the chariot, he a.s.sisted from it a maiden with a pale face, great, wild, roving eyes, and hair of tawny gold, and led her back to his wife.

'The Princess Ca.s.sandra of Troy--my wife, Queen Clytemnestra. They tell me this young lady can prophesy very prettily, my dear,' he remarked.

Clytemnestra bowed coldly, and said she was sure it would be vastly amusing. Did the Princess intend giving any public entertainments?

'She is our visitor,' Agamemnon put in warningly; while Ca.s.sandra smiled satirically, and said nothing at all.

Clytemnestra hoped she might be able to induce her to stay longer, a week was such a _very_ short time.

'She has kindly consented to stay on a little longer, my love,' said Agamemnon--'all her life,' in fact.'

The Queen was charmed to hear it; it was so very nice and kind of her, particularly as strangers were apt to find the neighbourhood an unhealthy one.

And as aegisthus joined them just then, she presented him to the King, with the remark that he had been the most faithful and devoted of courtiers during the whole period of the King's absence; to which Agamemnon replied, with the slightest of scowls, that he was delighted to make the acquaintance of Mr. aegisthus; and after that no one seemed to know exactly what to say for a minute or two.

At last aegisthus hazarded a supposition that the royal warrior had found it warm over at Troy.

'It varied, sir,' said the monarch, uncomfortably; 'the climate varied.

I used to get very warm fighting sometimes.'

aegisthus agreed that a battle must be hot work, and Clytemnestra suddenly exclaimed that her husband was wearing the very same dear shabby old uniform he had on when he went away.

'The very same,' said Agamemnon, smiling. 'I wore it all through the campaign. Your true warrior is no dandy!'

'We were given to understand you were wounded,' remarked aegisthus.

'Oh,' said the King, 'yes; I was considerably wounded--all over the chest and arms. But what cared I?'

'Exactly,' said aegisthus; 'and, curiously enough, the weapons don't seem to have pierced your coat at all. I observe there are no patches.'

'No,' the King replied; 'so you noticed that, eh? Well, the reason of that is that those fellows out there have a peculiar sort of way of cutting and slas.h.i.+ng, so as to----'

And he explained this by some elaborate ill.u.s.trations with his sheathed sword, until aegisthus said that he thought he understood how it was done.

But Clytemnestra suddenly, with a kitten-like girlishness that sat but ill upon her, pounced playfully upon the weapon. 'I want to see it drawn,' she cried; 'I want to look upon the keen flas.h.i.+ng blade which has penetrated the inmost recesses of so many of our country's foes. Oh, it won't come out,' she added, as she attempted to pull it out of the scabbard; '_do_ make it come out!'

The King tried, but the blade stuck half way, and what was visible of it seemed thickly coated with rust; but Agamemnon said it was gore, and his orderly must have forgotten to clean his accoutrements after the fall of Troy. He added that it was the effect of the sea air.

'Troy really has fallen then?' asked aegisthus. 'I suppose you stayed to see the thing out?'

'I did, sir,' answered the monarch proudly; 'I sacked the most fas.h.i.+onable quarters myself. I expect my booty will be forwarded--shortly. Didn't you _know_ Troy was taken?' he asked suspiciously. 'Couldn't you see the beacon I lighted just before I started?'

The courtier murmured that it was wonderful to find so long and tedious a journey accomplished in such capital time.

'What do you mean by that? How do you know how long it took?' demanded Agamemnon.

'Don't you see?' said Clytemnestra. 'Why, you say you had the fire lighted at Ida when you started; then, of course, they would see it directly over at Lemnos, and light theirs; and then at Athos, and then----'

'You are not a time-table, my love,' interrupted the monarch, coldly.