Clytemnestra assured him earnestly that they had had no intention of annoying him with it--which was literally true; and suggested meekly that for the King to stay out in the court-yard until all the decorations were removed might be a tedious and even a ridiculous proceeding. 'If,' she added, 'he was merely unwilling to spoil the drugget, he might easily remove his boots, which were extremely muddy--for a monarch's.'
'Well, well, my dear, be it so,' said the King; 'I did not intend to chide you. It is only that I have grown so accustomed to the frugal, hardy life of a camp, that I have imbibed a soldier's contempt for luxury.'
And, removing his boots, he followed the Queen into the Palace, as she led the way with a baleful expression upon her dark and inscrutable face.
As the pair passed up the steps and between the lofty pillars, the hounds howled from the royal kennels at the back of the Palace, and--a stranger portent still--a meteor shot suddenly through the growing gloom and burst in a rain of coloured stars above the house-top, while, shortly after, a staff fell from above upon the head of one of the Chorus--and was shivered to fragments!
Ægisthus had strolled away under the colonnade, and Cassandra was left alone with the Chorus. She stood apart, mystic, moody, and impenetrable, letting down her flowing back hair.
'You prophesy, do you not?' said the kind old men at length, wishing to make her feel at home; 'might we beg you to favour us with a prediction--just a little one?'
Cassandra made excuses at first, as was proper; she had a cold, and was feeling the effects of the journey. She was really not inspired just then, she protested, and besides, she had not touched a tripod for ages.
But, upon being pressed, she gave way at last, after declaring with a little giggle that she was perfectly certain nobody would believe a single word she said.
'I see before me,' she began, in a weird, sepulchral tone which she found it impossible to keep up for many sentences, 'a proud and stately pile--but enter not. See ye yon ghoul among the chimney-pots, yon amphisboena in the back garden? And the scent of gore pervades it!'
'It is no happy home that is thus described!' the Chorus threw in profesionally.