"The same one who helped to bring us here and who left us as soon as we entered the palace?" Clearchus demanded.

"Yes," Azemilcus answered, crossing his hands and hiding them in the wide sleeves of his robe. "He is not sharp-witted, my son; and it turns out that he still has hopes of saving Tyre so that he may reign here in my place. You see what they have been doing."

He stepped back and waved his hand toward the window. Beneath them was the breach that had been so desperately attacked and defended. The Tyrians had raised a new wall, nearly as thick and as high as the city wall itself. It formed a half-circle inside the gap, joining the main wall at either end, so that an attacking force, seeking to storm the breach, would be caught as in the bend of a bow. Swarms of men were still at work there by the light of torches.

The Athenian's heart sank. It seemed to him impossible that after the defeat of the preceding day, a second attack could succeed when the breach had been repaired. They were inside the city, it was true, but they were only five against forty thousand.

For a moment there was silence in the room. The bitter smile still rested on the thin lips of the old king. The chancellor stood nervously rubbing his knuckles, first with one hand and then with the other. Leonidas examined the wall and the new work with an eye that took in every detail. He turned to the king.

"You know that if you try to deceive us, we will kill you," he said quietly.

"Well?" the king replied, still with his thin smile.

"You say that it is your son who has shut you up," Leonidas continued.

"Why do you think so?"

"Because he alone, besides this man, knew that I had summoned you," the king said.

Leonidas looked at the chancellor, whose ashen face grew a shade paler under his scrutiny.

"You were about to betray your city and your son has betrayed you," the Spartan said.

"That is a harsh way to put it," Azemilcus answered. "The city was lost already."

"Is it lost now?" Leonidas demanded, pointing to the new wall.

"Yes," said the old king. "To-day, to-morrow, next month, it will fall. The Gods have deserted us. The boy told me they would."

"It is not surprising that the Gods have deserted you," the Spartan observed. "But your son, who has conspired against you, knows that we are here."

"Yes," the king admitted.

"And you kept us shut up while you were considering whether there was not some way of getting rid of us so that we might not be found and used as proof of your treachery," Leonidas continued. "You were ready to sacrifice us, who had come to save you, so that you might prove your son a liar and defeat his attempt."

Azemilcus made no reply, but the smile left his lips and he glanced furtively from side to side. Chares muttered some words in his throat that sounded like a curse.

"You are speaking to a king," Azemilcus said at last, drawing himself up with an assumption of dignity and trying to meet the eyes of his questioner.

"I am speaking to a fool!" Leonidas replied contemptuously. "In order to profit by his double perfidy, your son must have proof against you.

Who will believe him unless we are found? It will be his first care to produce us, and if he can do this, there will be no hope left for you.

Every moment that you kept us behind that door brought you nearer to death."

He paused, and Azemilcus made no reply; but his smile came back and his eyes wandered toward a table where a great flagon of wine had been set.

"There may yet be time to save ourselves and you," Leonidas continued.

"If you can get rid of us for the present, you will have nothing to fear. You can deny your son's story and it will be attributed to a clumsy plot to overthrow you. Is there no way out of the palace that is not guarded?"

"None that I know," the king replied.

The chancellor uttered a clucking sound in his throat that seemed involuntary. Leonidas gripped him by the shoulder.

"Do you know a way?" he cried. "Speak quickly."

The chancellor went down on his knees and raised his hands in supplication.

"Mercy!" he wailed. "Mercy! I know--I have heard of a way!"

"Where does it lead?" Leonidas demanded fiercely.

"To the Temple of our Lord, Baal-Moloch," the old man whimpered.

King Azemilcus looked at his chancellor with his keen eyes and sarcastic smile.

"Now I understand many things," he remarked dryly.

"Oh, my master, I took them!" the chancellor cried, with tears rolling down his cheeks. "Esmun made me do it. He said Moloch demanded them."

"My rubies," the king said musingly. "Well, never mind. We will talk of them hereafter."

"What is one piece of treachery, more or less, to you?" Leonidas said roughly. "Remain here. Should you escape your son, we will seek you, if we can, when those come whom you cannot escape. If we do not return, fly to the Temple of Melkarth and embrace his knees that you may be spared. Farewell!"

He dragged the chancellor to his feet. The man was shaking so that he could hardly stand. Below them in the palace they could hear the tramp of ascending footsteps and the sound of voices.

"They are coming; we cannot remain here," Nathan cried.

Leonidas snatched up the flagon of wine and hastily filled a golden cup that he offered to the chancellor.

"Drink this," he said. "It will give you strength."

Instead of taking the cup, the chancellor uttered a choking cry and pushed it from him.

"Not that!" he gasped. "See, I am strong! I will lead you!"

He seemed indeed to have recovered from his weakness, for he stepped briskly toward the door by which they had entered. Leonidas looked at him and then at the wine spilled upon the floor.

"Poisoned!" he exclaimed, and such a blaze of wrath gleamed in his eye that the old king shrank back.

"So this was your plan for getting rid of us!" the Spartan said.

His grasp tightened about the hilt of his sword, and for an instant he hesitated; but the tramp of the soldiers was close at hand and he reflected that a dead king could not betray Tyre. He sheathed his sword and darted into the passage after his companions. Azemilcus made fast the door behind them and let the draperies fall over it. Then he turned with his mocking smile to face his accusers.

CHAPTER XLIII

THE KING TAKES HIS REVENGE