"I know well what you meant," Thais returned. "Go!"
He turned and went. Thais grasped a branch of the shrubbery and tore it away, crumpling the leaves in her hands and scattering them in a bruised shower at her feet.
"How long must I put up with the insolence of this slave and his master?" she exclaimed. The opalescent animal light gleamed in her eyes as she turned them northward, and she paced backward and forward with impatient strides like a captive lioness. "I hate them!" she cried. "How many times have I been tempted to end it!"
She thrust her hand into her bosom and drew out her tiny dagger, whose hilt was studded with rubies that sparkled like drops of blood.
"Hush, Thais, some one is coming!" Artemisia said.
Thais quickly hid the dagger and turned to greet Phradates. He came forward with a smile, and the smile with which she met him had no trace in it of the anger that had so shaken her but a moment before.
"Great news!" the young man cried. "Alexander is coming!"
Artemisia caught her breath, and for an instant her head swam.
"Tell us," Thais said. "We are dying to hear all about it. You know we have had no news since the battle of Issus, where the Great King, as you call him, was beaten by one who seems to be greater."
There was a spice of malice in her voice that evidently annoyed the Ph[oe]nician.
"Yes, through the treachery of the Greeks," he replied, frowning. "Darius will depend upon his own people next time, and you will see then what will happen."
"But what has Alexander been doing since the battle?" Thais asked.
"He might have advanced upon Babylon with nobody to oppose him," Phradates said. "Of course, he would not have been able to capture the city, but at least he will never have a better chance to try it. He was afraid to make the attempt. He has been marching down the coast instead, and there has been no more fighting, because all the northern cities have surrendered to him."
"Well?" Thais said, listening with parted lips.
"In the absence of King Azemilcus," the Ph[oe]nician continued, "the council deemed it best to offer terms for the present. They sent an embassy, accompanied by the prince, to tell Alexander that he had nothing to fear from Tyre so long as he did not interfere with us."