*****

The sudden departure of king Ithobal in anger was the signal for the
breaking up of the feast.

"Why is that half-bred chief so wrath with me?" asked Aziel in a low
voice of Elissa as they followed Sakon to another chamber.

"Because--if you would know the truth--he set his dead cousin to kidnap
me, and you thwarted him," she answered, looking straight before her.

Aziel made no reply, for at that moment Sakon turned to speak with him,
and his face was anxious.

"I crave your pardon, Prince," he said, drawing him aside, "that you
should have met with such insults at my board. Had it been any other man
who spoke thus to you, by now he had rued his words, but this Ithobal
is the terror of our city, for if he chooses he can bring a hundred
thousand savages upon us, shutting us within our walls to starve,
and cutting us off from the working of the mines whence we win gold.
Therefore, in this way or that, he must be humoured, as indeed we have
humoured him and his father for years, though now," he added, his brow
darkening, "he demands a price that I am loth to pay," and he glanced
towards his daughter, who stood watching them at a little distance,
looking most beautiful in her white robes and ornaments of gold.

"Can you not make war upon him, and break his power?" asked Aziel, with
a strange anxiety, guessing that this price demanded by Ithobal was none
other than Elissa, the woman whom he had rescued, and whose wisdom and
beauty had stirred his heart.