“Look!” she commanded.
And Torres, approaching the great bowl, gazed into it. What he saw, the rest of his party never learned. But the Queen herself leaned forward and gazing down from above, saw with him, her face a beautiful advertisement of gentle and pitying mockery. And what Torres himself saw was a bedroom and a birth in the second story of the Bocas del Toro house he had inherited. Pitiful it was, with its last secrecy exposed, as was the gently smiling pity in the Queen’s face. And, in that flashing glimpse of magic vision, Torres saw confirmed about himself what he had always guessed and suspected.
“Would you see more,” the Queen softly mocked. “I have shown you the beginning of you. Look now, and behold your ending.”
But Torres, too deeply impressed by what he had already seen, shuddered away in recoil.
“Forgive me, Beautiful Woman,” he pleaded. “And let me pass. Forget, as I shall hope ever to forget.”
“It is gone,” she said, with a careless wave of her hand over the bowl. “But I cannot forget. The record will persist always in my mind. But you, O Man, so young of life, so ancient of helmet, have I beheld before this day, there in my Mirror of the World. You have vexed me much of late with your portending. Yet not with the helmet.” She smiled with quiet wisdom. “Always, it seems to me, I saw a chamber of the dead, of the long dead, upright on their unmoving legs and guarding through eternity mysteries alien to their faith and race. And in that dolorous company did it seem that I saw one who wore your ancient helmet.... Shall I speak further?”
“No, no,” Torres implored.
She bowed and nodded him back. Next, her scrutiny centred on Francis, whom she nodded forward. She stood up upon the dais as if to greet him, and, as if troubled by the fact that she must gaze down on him, stepped from the dais to the floor so that she might gaze up into his face as she extended her hand. Hesitatingly he took her hand in his, then knew not what next to do. Almost did it appear that she read his thought, for she said:
“Do it. I have never had it done to me before. I have never seen it done, save in my dreams and in the visions shown me in my Mirror of the World.”
And Francis bent and kissed her hand. And, because she did not signify to withdraw it, he continued to hold it, while, against his palm, he felt the faint but steady pulse of her pink finger-tips. And so they stood in pose, neither speaking, Francis embarrassed, the Queen sighing faintly, while the sex anger of woman tore at Leoncia’s heart, until Henry blurted out in gleeful English:
“Do it again, Francis! She likes it!”
The Sun Priest hissed silencing command at him. But the Queen, half withdrawing her hand with a startle like a maiden’s, returned it as deeply as before into Francis’ clasp, and addressed herself to Henry.
“I, too, know the language you speak,” she admonished. “Yet am I unashamed, I, who have never known a man, do admit that I like it. It is the first kiss that I have ever had. Francis——for such your friend calls you——obey your friend. I like it. I do like it. Once again kiss my hand.”
Francis obeyed, waited while her hand still lingered in his, and while she, oblivious to all else, as if toying with some beautiful thought, gazed lingeringly up into his eyes. By a visible effort she pulled herself together, released his hand abruptly, gestured him back to the others, and addressed the Sun Priest.
“Well, priest,” she said, with a return of the sharpness in her voice, “You have brought these captives here for a reason which I already know. Yet would I hear you state it yourself.”
“O Lady Who Dreams, shall we not kill these intruders as has ever been our custom? The people are mystified and in doubt of my judgment, and demand decision from you.”
“And you would kill?”
“Such is my judgment. I seek now your judgment that yours and mine may be one.”
She glanced over the faces of the four captives. For Torres, her brooding expression portrayed only pity. To Leoncia she extended a frown; to Henry, doubt. And upon Francis she gazed a full minute, her face growing tender, at least to Leoncia’s angry observation.
“Are any of you unmarried?” the Queen asked suddenly. “Nay,” she anticipated them. “It is given me to know that you are all unmarried.” She turned quickly to Leoncia. “Is it well,” she demanded, “that a woman should have two husbands?”
Both Henry and Francis could not refrain from smiling their amusement at so absurdly irrelevant a question. But to Leoncia it was neither absurd nor irrelevant, and in her cheeks arose the flush of anger again. This was a woman, she knew, with whom she had to deal, and who was dealing with her like a woman.
“It is not well,” Leoncia answered, with clear, ringing voice.
“It is very strange,” the Queen pondered aloud. “It is very strange. Yet is it not fair. Since there are equal numbers of men and women in the world, it cannot be fair for one woman to have two husbands, for, if so, it means that another woman shall have no husband.”
Another pinch of dust she tossed into the great bowl of gold. The sheen of smoke arose and vanished as before.
“The Mirror of the World will tell me, priest, what disposition shall be made of our captives.”
Just ere she leaned over to gaze into the bowl, a fresh thought deflected her. With an embracing wave of arm she invited them all up to the bowl.
“We may all look,” she said. “I do not promise you we will see the same visions of our dreams. Nor shall I know what you will have seen. Each for himself will see and know.——You, too, priest.”
They found the bowl, six feet in diameter that it was, half-full of some unknown metal liquid.
“It might be quicksilver, but it isn’t,” Henry whispered to Francis. “I have never seen the like of any similar metal. It strikes me as hotly molten.”
“It is very cold,” the Queen corrected him in English. “Yet is it fire.—You, Francis, feel the bowl outside.”
He obeyed, laying his full palm unhesitatingly to the yellow outer surface.
“Colder than the atmosphere of the room,” he adjudged.
“But look!” the Queen cried, tossing more powder upon the contents. “It is fire that remains cold.”
“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.
