“You rejoice that I leave you alone with your lover.  It is very natural——­”

“My lover!” cried Nehushta, her wrath rising and blazing in her eyes.

“Ay, your lover! the thin, white-haired priest, that once was Zoroaster—­your old lover—­your poor old lover!”

Nehushta steadied herself for a moment.  She felt as though she must tear this woman in pieces.  But she controlled her anger by a great effort, though she was nearly choking as she drew herself up and answered.

“I would that the powers of evil, of whom you are, might strangle the thrice-accursed lie in your false throat!” she said, in low fierce tones, and turned away.

Still Atossa stood there, smiling as ever.  Nehushta looked back as she reached the opposite end of the little plot.

“Are you not yet gone?  Shall I bid my slaves take you by the throat and force you from me?” But, as she spoke, she looked beyond Atossa, and saw that a body of dark men and women stood in the path.  Atossa had not come unprotected.

“I see you are the same foolish woman you ever were,” answered the older queen.  Just then, a strange sound echoed far off among the hills above, strange and far as the scream of a distant vulture sailing its mate to the carrion feast—­an unearthly cry that rang high in the air from side to side of the valley, and struck the dark crags and doubled in the echo, and died away in short, faint pulsations of sound upon the startled air.

Nehushta started slightly.  It might have been the cry of a wolf, or of some wild beast prowling upon the heights, but she had never heard such a sound before.  But Atossa showed no surprise, and her smile returned to her lips more sweetly than ever—­those lips that had kissed three kings, and that had never spoken truly a kind or a merciful word to living man, or child, or woman.

“Farewell, Nehushta,” she said, “if you will not come, I will leave you to yourself—­and to your lover.  I daresay he can protect you from harm.  Heard you that sound?  It is the cry of your fate.  Farewell, foolish girl, and may every undreamed-of quality of evil attend you to your dying day——­”

“Go!” cried Nehushta, turning and pointing to the path with a gesture of terrible anger.  Atossa moved back a little.

“It is no wonder I linger awhile—­I thought you were past suffering.  If I had time, I might yet find some way of tormenting you—­you are very foolish——­”

Nehushta walked rapidly forward upon her, as though to do her some violence with her own hands.  But Atossa, as she gave way before the angry Hebrew woman, drew from beneath her mantle the Indian knife she had once taken from her.  Nehushta stopped short, as she saw the bright blade thrust out against her bosom.  But Atossa held it up one moment, and then threw it down upon the grass at her feet.

“Take it!” she cried, and in her voice, that had been so sweet and gentle a moment before, there suddenly rang out a strange defiance and a bitter wrath.  “Take what is yours—­I loathe it, for it smells of you—­and you, and all that is yours, I loathe and hate and scorn!”