By night they can escape to their yacht. This I will
do--upon one condition."
"Oh--what is that?" she asked, and for all the reticence of her
eagerness, her voice was a betrayal.
Prince Tabnit turned to the window. Below, in the palace grounds,
and without, in the Eurychorus, a thousand people awaited the
opening of the palace doors. They filled the majestic avenue, poured
up the shadowed alleys that taught the necessity of mystery, were
grouped beneath the honey-sweet trees; and above their heads, from
every dome and column in the fair city, flowed and streamed the
joyous, wizard, nameless colours of the pennons blown heavenward
against the blue. They were come, this strange, wise, elusive
people, to her marriage.
The prince was smiling as he met her eyes; for the world was always
the exquisite intaglio, and to-day was its design.
"They know," he said simply, "what was to have been at noon to-day.
Do you not understand my condition?"
CHAPTER XIX
IN THE HALL OF KINGS
Somewhat before noon the great doors of the Palace of the Litany and
of the Hall of Kings were thrown open, and the people streamed in
from the palace grounds and the Eurychorus.
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