"He was a great man," said the Princess, slowly piloting them as
she spoke, without hurry and with careful courtesy, through the
serried ranks of the now freely chattering and animated company.
"Much greater than any of your modern heroes. But he had two
faults; faults which frequently accompany the plentitude of
power,--cruelty and selfishness. He betrayed and murdered the only
woman that ever loved him, Ziska-Charmazel."

"Murdered her!" exclaimed Dr. Dean. "How?"

"Oh, it is only a legend!" and the Princess smiled, turning her
dark eyes with a bewitching languor on Gervase, who, for some
reason or other which he could not explain, felt as if he were
walking in a dream on the edge of a deep chasm of nothingness,
into which he must presently sink to utter destruction. "All these
old histories happened so long ago that they are nothing but myths
now to the present generation."

"Time does not rob any incident of its interest to me," said Dr.
Dean. "Ages hence Queen Victoria will be as much a doubtful
potentate as King Lud. To the wise student of things there is no
time and no distance. All history from the very beginning is like
a wonderful chain in which no link is ever really broken, and in
which every part fits closely to the other part,--though why the
chain should exist at all is a mystery we cannot solve. Yet I am
quite certain that even our late friend Araxes has his connection
with the present, if only for the reason that he lived in the
past."

"How do you argue out that theory!" asked Gervase with sudden