Then, before I could answer her, she was gone.



For some weeks after this I saw no more of the Augusta, who appeared
to avoid me. One day, however, I was summoned to her presence in her
private apartments by the waiting-lady Martina, and went, to find her
alone, save for Martina. The first thing that I noticed was that she
wore about her neck an exact copy of the necklace of golden shells and
emerald beetles; further, that about her waist was a girdle and on her
wrist a bracelet of similar design. Pretending to see nothing, I saluted
and stood to attention.

"Captain," she began, "yonder"--and she waved her hand towards the city,
so that I could not fail to see the shell bracelet--"the uncles of my
son, the Emperor, lie in prison. Have you heard of the matter, and, if
so, what have you heard?"

"I have heard, Augusta, that the Emperor having been defeated by
the Bulgarians, some of the legions proposed to set his uncle,
Nicephorus--he who has been made a priest--upon the throne. I have
heard further that thereon the Emperor caused the Cæsar Nicephorus to
be blinded, and the tongues of the two other Cæsars and of their two
brothers, the _Nobilissimi_, to be slit."

"Do you think well of such a deed, Olaf?"

"Augusta," I answered, "in this city I make it my business not to think,
for if I did I should certainly go mad."