"What is it?" she whispered, clinging to him with a reflex of his own unspoken emotion.
"We are safe!--But that man shall not die without hearing the truth," he added, sternly.
Again there was a dazzling lightning-flash, and the thunder seemed to break at their very ears. By a quick, sinuous movement, Gnulemah freed herself from his arm and looked at him with her grand eyes,--night-black, lit each with a sparkling star. Her feminine intuition perceived a change in him, though she could not fathom its cause. It jarred the fineness of their mutual harmony.
"Our happiness should make others' greater," said she.
He looked into her eyes with a gaze so ardent that their lids drooped; and the tone of his answer, though lover-like, had more of masculine authority in it than she had yet heard from him.
"My darling, you do not know what wrong he has done you--and others. It is only justice that he should learn how God punishes such as he!"
"Will not God teach him?" said Gnulemah, trembling to oppose the man she loved, yet by love compelled to do so.
Balder paused, and looked towards the bed. There was a flickering smile on Manetho's face; he seemed to be reviving. His injuries were perhaps not fatal after all. Should he recover, he must sooner or later receive his so-called punishment; meanwhile, Balder was inclined to regard himself as the chosen minister of Divine justice. Why not speak now?
This was the second occasion that he had held Manetho in his power, at a time when the Egyptian had been attempting his destruction. In the previous encounter he had retaliated in kind. Would the bitter issue of that self-indulgence not make him wary now? Here was again the murderous lust of power, albeit disguised as love of justice. Had Balder's penitent suffering failed to teach him the truth of human brotherhood, and equality before God? Love, typified by Gnulemah, would fain dissuade him from his purpose: but love (as often happens when it stands in the way of harsh and ignoble impulses) appeared foolishly merciful.
Once again his glance met Gnulemah's,--lingered a moment,--and then turned away. It was for the last time. At that moment he was less noble than ever before. But the expression of her eyes he never forgot; the love, the entreaty, the grandeur,--the sorrow!-He turned away and approached the bedside, while Gnulemah went to kneel at her maiden altar. Manetho's eyes were closed; his features wore a singularly childlike expression. In truth, he was but half himself; the shock he had sustained had paralyzed one part of his nature. The subtle, evil-plotting Egyptian was dormant; his brain interpreted nothing save the messages of the heart; only the affectionate, emotional Manetho was awake. The evil he had done and the misery of it were forgotten.--All this Balder divined; yet his assumption of godlike censorship would not permit him to relent. It is when man deems himself most secure that he falls, in a worse way than ever.