With head bowed and form shaken by grief, her hands sought his neck; and whatever he would have said a moment before in reproof of her feeling for one of the hated race, it was forgotten in pity as he drew her into his arms. With affectionate sympathy he endeavored to moderate her anguish, but words were vain, and he could only hold her tight-clasped until its force was spent. Then he half carried her, benumbed and yielding, to her couch and called her maids, lingering helpless beside her while they ministered.
Rava had grown more tranquil, and he was about to depart. She lay quiet, her eyes closed, their lashes yet moist, and he bent over to kiss the pallid cheek. As he did so she sighed deeply, and a small object slipped from her bosom and lay sparkling at the end of its slender chain. Its silvery gleam caught his eye. He started, looked more closely, and recoiled as if he had seen a serpent in the folds of her robe. He caught breath sharply, and an ashy paleness spread over his bronzed face. By a blessing of Heaven the girl did not open her eyes upon the mingled abhorrence, unbelief, and anger, with which he beheld the tiny image of the crucified Saviour—the emblem of all on the broad earth that he hated most savagely. He gazed for a fascinated instant, stood erect, glanced at the sad face once more, and left the room with features as rigid as if cast in the metal whose color they wore. The startled maids looked after him as he went, but none saw him stagger as he crossed the court with his hands pressed to his forehead. The Moon, goddess consort of the Sun, was rising over the dark roofs of the palace. He wavered out from the shadow into her rays and cowered beneath them, shuddering as if he felt her silent denunciation of his sister’s apostasy. Gaining his apartments, he passed his attendants without a word, leaving them awed by a face they had hardly recognized.
When his generals met him, near midnight, his eyes were fevered, his voice hoarse and dry, and his words, fraught with war, were uttered with an abrupt tensity that fired their warlike hearts. The council was long. At its close the _chasquis_ who were to bear his messages to the distant provinces, calling them to arms, were summoned to have the words from his own lips. They left it with nerves strung by their portentous import and the fierce, suppressed energy with which they were given.