Now at last she turned on him, saying,
"Well is it for you, Barbarian, that if only for a while Fate has reft power from my hands. Oh! this is the bitterest drop in all my cup, that I who for a score of years ruled the world must live to suffer the insults of such as you."
"Then why not die and have done?" asked the imperturbable Jodd. "Or, if you lack the courage, why not submit to the decree of the Emperor, as so many have submitted to your decree, instead of troubling the general here with prayers for mercy? It would serve as well."
"Jodd," I said, "I command you to be silent. This lady is in trouble; attack those in power, if you will, not those who have fallen."
"There speaks the man I loved," said Irene. "What perverse fate kept us apart, Olaf? Had you taken what I offered, by now you and I would have ruled the world."
"Perhaps, Madam; yet it is right I should say that I do not regret my choice, although because of it I can no longer—look upon the world."
"I know, I know! She of that accursed necklace, which I see you still wear, came between us and spoiled everything. Now I'm ruined for lack of you and you are nobody for lack of me, a soldier who will run his petty course and depart into the universal darkness, leaving never a name behind him. In the ages to be what man will take count of one of a score of governors of the little Isle of Lesbos, who might yet have held the earth in the hollow of his hand and shone a second Cæsar in its annals? Oh! what marplot of a devil rules our destinies? He who fashioned those
