“This, girl:  the prince who was pleased to honour you is now pleased to dishonour you.  Here, in the presence of the council and army, he prays of me to annul his sealing to you, and to send you back to the house of your guardian, Hokosa the wizard.”

Noma started, and her face grew hard.

“Is it so?” she said.  “Then it would seem that I have lost favour in the eyes of my lord the prince, or that some fairer woman has found it.”

“Of these matters I know nothing,” replied the king; “but this I know, that if you seek justice you shall have it.  Say but the word, and he to whom you were promised in marriage shall take you in marriage, whether he wills or wills it not.”

At this speech, the face of Hafela was suddenly lit up as with the fire of hope, while over that of Hokosa there passed another subtle change.  The girl glanced at them both and was silent for a while.  Her breast heaved and her white teeth bit upon her lip.  To Owen, who noted all, it was clear that rival passions were struggling in her heart:  the passion of power and the passion of love, or of some emotion which he did not understand.  Hokosa fixed his calm eyes upon her with a strange intensity of gaze, and while he gazed his form quivered with a suppressed excitement, much as a snake quivers that is about to strike its prey.  To the careless eye there was nothing remarkable about his look and attitude; to the observer it was evident that both were full of extraordinary purpose.  He was talking to the girl, not with words, but in some secret language that he and she understood alone.  She started as one starts who catches the tone of a well-remembered voice in a crowd of strangers, and lifting her eyes from the ground, whither she had turned them in meditation, she looked up at Hokosa.

Instantly her face began to change.  The haughtiness and anger went out of it, it grew troubled, the lips parted in a sigh.  First she bent her head and body towards him, then without more ado she walked to where he stood and took him by the hand.  Here, at some whispered word or sign, she seemed to recover herself, and again resuming the character of a proud offended beauty, she curtseyed to Umsuka, and spoke:—­

“O King, as you see, I have made my choice.  I will not force myself upon a man who scorns me, no, not even to share his place and power, though it is true that I love them both.  Nay, I will return to Hokosa my guardian, and to his wife, Zinti, who has been as my mother, and with them be at peace.”

“It is well,” said the king, “and perhaps, girl, your choice is wise; perhaps your loss is not so great as you have thought.  Hafela, take you the hand of Hokosa and release the girl back to him according to the law, promising in the ears of men before the first month of winter to pay him two hundred head of cattle as forfeit, to be held by him in trust for the girl.”

In a sullen voice, his lips trembling with rage, Hafela did as the king commanded; and when the hands of the conspirators unclasped, Owen perceived that in that of the prince lay a tiny packet.