up my mind—to spare Irene. Come what might, I would be no butcher; I would follow my heart whithersoever it might lead me.
"Cease, Madam," I said. "I have decided. Jodd, bid the messenger summon hither Heliodore and Martina, my wife and yours."
"Oh!" exclaimed Irene, "if these women are to be called in counsel on my case all is finished, seeing that both of them love you and are my enemies. Moreover, I have some pride left. To you I could plead, but not to them, though they blind me with their bodkins after they have stabbed me with their tongues. Excellency, a last boon! Call in your guard and kill me."
"Madam, I said that I had decided, and all the women in the world will not change my mind in this way or in that. Jodd, do my bidding."
Jodd struck a bell, once only, which was the signal for the messenger. He came and received his orders. Then followed a pause, since Heliodore and Martina were in a place close by and must be sent for. During this time Irene began to talk to me of sundry general matters. She compared the view that might be seen from this house in Lesbos to that from the terrace of her palace on the Bosphorus, and described its differences to me. She asked me as to the Caliph Harun-al-Rashid, whom she understood I had seen, inquiring as to the estimate I had formed of his character. Lastly, with a laugh, she dwelt upon the strange vicissitudes of life.
"Look at me," she said. "I began my days as the daughter of a Greek gentleman, with no dower save my wit and beauty. Then I rose to be a ruler
