And so the people cheered till the roof rang; but Sorais of the
Night stood there with downcast eyes, for she could not bear
to see her sister's triumph, which robbed her of the man whom
she had hoped to win, and in the awfulness of her jealous anger
she trembled and turned white like an aspen in the wind. I think
I have said somewhere of her that she reminded me of the sea
on a calm day, having the same aspect of sleeping power about
her. Well, it was all awake now, and like the face of the furious
ocean it awed and yet fascinated me. A really handsome woman
in a royal rage is always a beautiful sight, but such beauty
and such a rage I never saw combined before, and I can only say
that the effect produced was well worthy of the two.
She lifted her white face, the teeth set, and there were purple
rings beneath her glowing eyes. Thrice she tried to speak and
thrice she failed, but at last her voice came. Raising her silver
spear, she shook it, and the light gleamed from it and from the
golden scales of her cuirass.
'And thinkest thou, Nyleptha,' she said in notes which pealed
through the great hall like a clarion, 'thinkest thou that I,
Sorais, a Queen of the Zu-Vendi, will brook that this base outlander
shall sit upon my father's throne and rear up half-breeds to
fill the place of the great House of the Stairway? Never! never!
while there is life in my bosom and a man to follow me and a
spear to strike with.
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