When we knew that Agon was caught, Nyleptha, Sir Henry, and I discussed what was to be done with him. I was for closely him, but Nyleptha shook her head, saying that it would produce a effect throughout the country. ‘Ah!’ she added, with a stamp of her foot, ‘if I win and am once really Queen, I will break the power of those priests, with their and and dark secret ways.’ I only wished that old Agon could have heard her, it would have frightened him.
‘Well,’ said Sir Henry, ‘if we are not to him, I suppose that we may as well let him go. He is of no use here.’
Nyleptha looked at him in a curious sort of way, and said in a dry little voice, ‘Thinkest thou so, my lord?’
‘Eh?’ said Curtis. ‘No, I do not see what is the use of keeping him.’
She said nothing, but continued looking at him in a way that was as shy as it was sweet.
Then at last he understood.
‘Forgive me, Nyleptha,’ he said, rather tremulously. ‘Dost thou mean that thou marry me, even now?’
‘Nay, I know not; let my lord say,’ was her rapid answer; ‘but if my lord wills, the priest is there and the altar is there’—pointing to the entrance to a private —‘and am I not ready to do the will of my lord? Listen, oh my lord! In eight days or less thou must leave me and go down to war, for thou shalt lead my armies, and in war—men sometimes fall, and so I would for a little space have had thee all my own, if only for memory’s sake;’ and the tears her lovely eyes and rolled down her face like heavy drops of dew down the red heart of a rose.
‘Mayhap, too,’ she went on, ‘I shall lose my crown, and with my crown my life and thine also. Sorais is very strong and very bitter, and if she prevails she will not spare. Who can read the future? Happiness is the world’s White Bird, that alights seldom, and flies fast and far till one day he is lost in the clouds. Therefore should we hold him fast if by any chance he rests for a little space upon our hand. It is not wise to neglect the present for the future, for who knows what the future will be, Incubu? Let us pluck our flowers while the dew is on them, for when the sun is up they and on the morrow will others bloom that we shall never see.’ And she lifted her sweet face to him and smiled into his eyes, and once more I felt a curious of and turned and went away. They never took much notice of whether I was there or not, thinking, I suppose, that I was an old fool, and that it did not matter one way or the other, and really I believe that they were right.
So I went back to our quarters and over things in general, and watched old Umslopogaas his outside the window as a vulture his beside a dying ox.
And in about an hour’s time Sir Henry came tearing over, looking very radiant and wildly excited, and found Good and myself and even Umslopogaas, and asked us if we should like to assist at a real wedding. Of course we said yes, and off we went to the chapel, where we found Agon looking as sulky as any High Priest possibly could, and no wonder. It appeared that he and Nyleptha had a slight difference of opinion about the coming ceremony. He had flatly refused to celebrate it, or to allow any of his priests to do so, whereupon Nyleptha became very angry and told him that she, as Queen, was head of the Church, and meant to be obeyed. Indeed, she played the part of a Zu-Vendi Henry the Eighth to perfection, and insisted that, if she wanted to be married, she would be married, and that he should marry her. {Endnote 18}
He still refused to go through the ceremony, so she her argument thus—
‘Well, I cannot execute a High Priest, because there is an absurd prejudice against it, and I cannot imprison him because all his subordinates would raise a crying that would bring the stars down on Zu-Vendis and crush it; but I can leave him to the altar of the Sun without anything to eat, because that is his natural , and if thou wilt not marry me, O Agon! thou shalt be placed before the altar yonder with but a little water till such time as thou hast reconsidered the matter.’
Now, as it happened, Agon had been hurried away that morning without his breakfast, and was already exceedingly hungry, so he presently modified his views and consented to marry them, saying at the same time that he washed his hands of all responsibility in the matter.
So it chanced that presently, attended only by two of her favourite , came the Queen Nyleptha, with happy blushing face and downcast eyes, dressed in pure white, without of any sort, as seems to be the fashion on these occasions in most countries of the world. She did not wear a single , even her gold circlets were removed, and I thought that if possible she looked more lovely than ever without them, as really superbly beautiful women do.
She came, curtseyed low to Sir Henry, and then took his hand and led him up before the altar, and after a little pause, in a slow, clear voice uttered the following words, which are customary in Zu-Vendis if the bride desires and the man consents:—
‘Thou dost swear by the Sun that thou wilt take no other woman to wife unless I lay my hand upon her and bid her come?’
‘I swear it,’ answered Sir Henry; adding in English, ‘One is quite enough for me.’
Then Agon, who had been sulking in a corner near the altar, came forward and gabbled off something into his beard at such a rate that I could not follow it, but it appeared to be an invocation to the Sun to bless the union and make it fruitful. I observed that Nyleptha listened very closely to every word, and afterwards discovered that she was afraid lest Agon should play her a trick, and by going through the invocations divorce them instead of marry them. At the end of the invocations they were asked, as in our service, if they took each other for husband and wife, and on their they kissed each other before the altar, and the service was over, so far as their rites were concerned. But it seemed to me that there was yet something wanting, and so I produced a Prayer-Book, which has, together with the ‘Ingoldsby Legends’, that I often read when I lie awake at night, accompanied me in all my later wanderings. I gave it to my poor boy years ago, and after his death I found it among his things and took it back again.
‘Curtis,’ I said, ‘I am not a clergyman, and I do not know if what I am going to propose is allowable—I know it is not legal—but if you and the Queen have no objection I should like to read the English marriage service over you. It is a solemn step which you are taking, and I think that you ought, so far as circumstances will allow, to give it the sanction of your own religion.’
‘I have thought of that,’ he said, ‘and I wish you would. I do not feel half married yet.’
Nyleptha raised no objection, understanding that her husband wished to celebrate the marriage according to the rites in his own country, and so I set to work and read the service, from ‘Dearly beloved’ to ‘amazement’, as well as I could; and when I came to ‘I, Henry, take thee, Nyleptha,’ I translated, and also ‘I, Nyleptha, take thee, Henry,’ which she repeated after me very well. Then Sir Henry took a plain gold ring from his little finger and placed it on hers, and so on to the end. The ring had been Curtis’ mother’s wedding-ring, and I could not help thinking how astonished the dear old Yorkshire lady would have been if she could have foreseen that her wedding-ring was to serve a similar purpose for Nyleptha, a Queen of the Zu-Vendi.
As for Agon, he was with difficulty kept calm while this second ceremony was going on, for he at once understood that it was religious in its nature, and doubtless bethought him of the ninety-five new faiths which so in his eyes. Indeed, he at once set me down as a rival High Priest, and hated me accordingly. However, in the end off he went,
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