Hearts of Three 42

Hearts of Three 42

“It is the powder that smokes with the heat of its own containment,”

Torres blurted out, at the same time feeling into the bottom of his coat

pocket. He drew forth a pinch of crumbs of tobacco, match splinters, and

cloth-fluff. “This will not burn,” he challenged, inviting invitation by

extending the pinch of rubbish over the bowl as if to drop it in.

 

The Queen nodded consent, and all saw the rubbish fall upon the liquid

metal surface. The particles made no indentation on that surface. Only

did they transform into smoke that sheened upward and was gone. No

remnant of ash remained.

 

“Still is it cold,” said Torres, imitating Francis and feeling the

outside of the bowl.

 

“Thrust your finger into the contents,” the Queen suggested to Torres.

 

“No,” he said.

 

“You are right,” she confirmed. “Had you done so, you would now be with

one finger less than the number with which you were born.” She tossed in

more powder. “Now shall each behold what he alone will behold.”

 

And it was so.

 

To Leoncia was it given to see an ocean separate her and Francis. To

Henry was it given to see the Queen and Francis married by so strange a

ceremony, that scarcely did he realise, until at the close, that it was

a wedding taking place. The Queen, from a flying gallery in a great

house, looked down into a magnificent drawing-room that Francis would

have recognized as builded by his father had her vision been his. And,

beside her, his arm about her, she saw Francis. Francis saw but one

thing, vastly perturbing, the face of Leoncia, immobile as death, with

thrust into it, squarely between the eyes, a slender-bladed dagger. Yet

he did not see any blood flowing from the wound of the dagger. Torres

glimpsed the beginning of what he knew must be his end, crossed himself,

and alone of all of them shrank back, refusing to see further. While the

Sun Priest saw the vision of his secret sin, the face and form of the

woman for whom he had betrayed the Worship of the Sun, and the face and

form of the maid of the village at the Long House.

 

As all drew back by common consent when the visions faded, Leoncia

turned like a tigress, with flashing eyes, upon the Queen, crying:

 

“Your mirror lies! Your Mirror of the World lies!”

 

Francis and Henry, still under the heavy spell of what they had

themselves beheld, were startled and surprised by Leoncia’s outburst.

But the Queen, speaking softly, replied:

 

“My Mirror of the World has never lied. I know not what you saw. But I

do know, whatever it was, that it is truth.”

 

“You are a monster!” Leoncia cried on. “You are a vile witch that lies!”

 

“You and I are women,” the Queen chided with sweet gentleness, “and may

not know of ourselves, being women. Men will decide whether or not I am

a witch that lies or a woman with a woman’s heart of love. In the

meanwhile, being women and therefore weak, let us be kind to each

other.”

 

“——And now, Priest of the Sun, to judgment. You, as priest under the Sun

God, know more of the ancient rule and procedure than do I. You know

more than do I about myself and how I came to be here. You know that

always, mother and daughter, and by mother and daughter, has the tribe

maintained a Queen of Mystery, a Lady of Dreams. The time has come when

we must consider the future generations. The strangers have come, and

they are unmarried. This must be the wedding day decreed, if the

generations to come after of the tribe are to possess a Queen to dream

for them. It is well, and time and need and place are met. I have

dreamed to judgment. And the judgment is that I shall marry, of these

strangers, the stranger allotted to me before the foundations of the

world were laid. The test is this: If no one of these will marry, then

shall they die and their warm blood be offered up by you before the

altar of the Sun. If one will marry me, then all shall live, and Time

hereafter will register our futures.”

 

The Sun Priest, trembling with anger, strove to protest, but she

commanded:

 

“Silence, priest! By me only do you rule the people. At a word from me

to the people—well, you know. It is not any easy way to die.”

 

She turned to the three men, saying:

 

“And who will marry me?”

 

They looked embarrassment and consternation at one another, but none

spoke.

 

“I am a woman,” the Queen went on teasingly. “And therefore am I not

desirable to men? Is it that I am not young? Is it, as women go, that I

am not beautiful? Is it that men’s tastes are so strange that no man

cares to clasp the sweet of me in his arms and press his lips on mine as

good Francis there did on my hand?”

 

She turned her eyes on Leoncia.

 

“You be judge. You are a woman well loved of men. Am I not such a woman

as you, and shall I not be loved?”

 

“You will ever be kinder to men than to women,” Leoncia

answered——cryptically as regarded the three men who heard, but clearly

to the woman’s brain of the Queen. “And as a woman,” Leoncia continued,

“you are strangely beautiful and luring; and there are men in this

world, many men, who could be made mad to clasp you in their arms. But I

warn you, Queen, that in this world are men, and men, and men.”

 

Having heard and debated this, the Queen turned abruptly to the priest.

 

“You have heard, priest. This day a man shall marry me. If no man

marries me, these three men shall be offered up on your altar. So shall

be offered up this woman, who, it would seem, would put shame upon me by

having me less than she.”

 

Still she addressed the priest, although her message was for the others.

 

“There are three men of them, one of whom, long cycles before he was

born, was destined to marry me. So, priest, I say, take the captives

away into some other apartment, and let them decide among themselves

which is the man.”

 

“Since it has been so long destined,” Leoncia flamed forth, “then why

put it to the chance of their decision? You know the man. Why put it to

the risk? Name the man, Queen, and name him now.”

 

“The man shall be selected in the way I have indicated,” the Queen

replied, as, at the same time, absently she tossed a pinch of powder

into the great bowl and absently glanced therein. “So now depart, and

let the inevitable choice be made.”

 

They were already moving away out of the room, when a cry from the Queen

stopped them.

 

“Wait!” she ordered. “Come, Francis. I have seen something that concerns

you. Come, gaze with me upon the Mirror of the World.”

 

And while the others paused, Francis gazed with her upon the strange

liquid metal surface. He saw himself in the library of his New York

house, and he saw beside him the Lady Who Dreams, his arm around her.

Next, he saw her curiosity at sight of the stock-ticker. As he tried to

explain it to her, he glanced at the tape and read such disturbing

information thereon that he sprang to the nearest telephone and, as the

vision faded, saw himself calling up his broker.

 

“What was it you saw?” Leoncia questioned, as they passed out.

 

And Francis lied. He did not mention seeing the Lady Who Dreams in his

New York library. Instead, he replied:

 

“It was a stock-ticker, and it showed a bear market on Wall Street

somersaulting into a panic. Now how did she know I was interested in

Wall Street and stock-tickers?”

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XIX

 

 

“Somebody’s got to marry that crazy woman,” Leoncia spoke up, as they

lolled upon the mats of the room to which the priest had taken them.

“Not only will he be a hero by saving our lives, but he will save his

own life as well. Now, Senor Torres, is your chance to save all our

lives and your own.”

 

“Br-r-r!” Torres shivered. “I would not marry her for ten million gold.

She is too wise. She is terrible. She—how shall I say?—she, as you

Americans say, gets my goat. I am a brave man. But before her I am not

brave. The flesh of me melts in a sweat of fear. Not for less than ten

million would I dare to overcome my fear. Now Henry and Francis are

braver than I. Let one of them marry her.”

 

“But I am engaged to marry Leoncia,” Henry spoke up promptly.

“Therefore, I cannot marry the Queen.”

 

And their eyes centered on Francis, but, before he could reply, Leoncia

broke in.

 

“It is not fair,” she said. “No one of you wants to marry her. The only

equitable way to settle it will be by drawing lots.” As she spoke, she

pulled three straws from the mat on which she sat and broke one off very

short. “The man who draws the short straw shall be the victim. You,

Senor Torres, draw first.”

 

“Wedding bells for the short straw,” Henry grinned.

 

Torres crossed himself, shivered, and drew. So patently long was the

straw, that he executed a series of dancing steps as he sang:

 

“No wedding bells for me,

I’m as happy as can be ...”