As she stood there, a butterfly danced in upon the sunlight, fluttered about her head, and finally settled upon her hair, slowly opening and shutting its red-brown wings, mottled with darker spots. Like a sudden breeze in a ripened field of grain, a whisper of admiration and superstitious wonder ran through the room. Thais raised her eyes, and the shadow of a smile parted her crimson lips, showing the pearly gleam of her teeth.
Thus for a moment she stood in the sunlight before the gaze of the assemblage that thronged about the Rhodian general. The flower of her womanhood seemed to exhale a nameless, sensuous fascination, like the strange perfume of a rare exotic, the spell of which was longing and desire.
Clearchus and Chares were led into the room before Thais. She turned to them with a swift warning in her glance that stopped the words of protest on the lips of the Theban.
"Leave them to me," her eyes seemed to say.
"Do you know these men?" Memnon asked courteously.
"I know them," she assented, in a voice that sounded singularly sweet and timid. "They are Chares, who was of Thebes, and Clearchus, of Athens."
"Can you tell what brought them here?" Memnon asked.
"They left Athens in search of Artemisia, as all Athens knows," Thais returned.
Her answer had substantiated the story of the prisoners. Memnon turned inquiringly to Orontobates.
"It may be that this is some trick," the Persian said softly, in his own tongue. "Who knows that they have not concerted this story for this occasion?"
"My lord's suspicion is just," Thais returned, smiling upon Orontobates and addressing him in his own language; "but he will observe that I have not seen these men since they left Athens, and, indeed, I did not know they were here."
"Then why did you come here yourself?" Orontobates asked, returning her smile.
"I came because I learned that Artemisia was here, and I, too, wished to find her," Thais replied.
Orontobates shook his head incredulously. "If this young woman, for whom all Athens seems to be seeking, is here in Halicarnassus, doubtless she can be found," he remarked.
"My lord is right," Thais said quietly, "for I have found her."
"Shall we send for her?" Memnon asked, turning to Orontobates, who sat thoughtfully stroking his beard, "or shall we set the prisoners free?"