As the youth advanced into the arena, he turned, as the custom was, to bow to the king.  But he did not think at all of that royal personage; his eyes were fixed upon the princess, who sat to the right of her father.  Had it not been for the moiety of barbarism in her nature, it is probable that lady would not have been there.  But her intense and fervid soul would not allow her to be absent on an occasion in which she was so terribly interested.  From the moment that the decree had gone forth that her lover should decide his fate in the king’s arena, she had thought of nothing, night or day, but this great event and the various subjects connected with it.  Possessed of more power, influence, and force of character than any one who had ever before been interested in such a case, she had done what no other person had done—­she had possessed herself of the secret of the doors.  She knew in which of the two rooms behind those doors stood the cage of the tiger, with its open front and in which waited the lady.  Through these thick doors, heavily curtained with skins on the inside, it was impossible that any noise or suggestion should come from within to the person who should approach to raise the latch of one of them.  But gold, and the power of a woman’s will, had brought the secret to the princess.

Not only did she know in which room stood the lady, ready to emerge, all blushing and radiant, should her door be opened, but she knew who the lady was.  It was one of the fairest and loveliest of the damsels of the court who had been selected as the reward of the accused youth, should he be proved innocent of the crime of aspiring to one so far above him; and the princess hated her.  Often had she seen, or imagined that she had seen, this fair creature throwing glances of admiration upon the person of her lover, and sometimes she thought these glances were perceived and even returned.  Now and then she had seen them talking together.  It was but for a moment or two, but much can be said in a brief space.  It may have been on most unimportant topics, but how could she know that?  The girl was lovely, but she had dared to raise her eyes to the loved one of the princess, and, with all the intensity of the savage blood transmitted to her through long lines of wholly barbaric ancestors, she hated the woman who blushed and trembled behind that silent door.

When her lover turned and looked at her, and his eye met hers as she sat there paler and whiter than any one in the vast ocean of anxious faces about her, he saw, by that power of quick perception which is given to those whose souls are one, that she knew behind which door crouched the tiger, and behind which stood the lady.  He had expected her to know it.  He understood her nature, and his soul was assured that she would never rest until she had made plain to herself this thing, hidden to all other lookers-on, even to the king.  The only hope for the youth in which there was any element of certainty was based upon the success of the princess in discovering this mystery, and the moment he looked upon her, he saw she had succeeded.