Then, before I could answer her, she was gone.
For some weeks after this I saw no more of the Augusta, who appeared to avoid me. One day, however, I was summoned to her presence in her private apartments by the waiting-lady Martina, and went, to find her alone, save for Martina. The first thing that I noticed was that she wore about her neck an exact copy of the necklace of golden shells and emerald beetles; further, that about her waist was a girdle and on her wrist a bracelet of similar design. Pretending to see nothing, I saluted and stood to attention.
"Captain," she began, "yonder"--and she waved her hand towards the city, so that I could not fail to see the shell bracelet--"the uncles of my son, the Emperor, lie in prison. Have you heard of the matter, and, if so, what have you heard?"
"I have heard, Augusta, that the Emperor having been defeated by the Bulgarians, some of the legions proposed to set his uncle, Nicephorus--he who has been made a priest--upon the throne. I have heard further that thereon the Emperor caused the Cæsar Nicephorus to be blinded, and the tongues of the two other Cæsars and of their two brothers, the Nobilissimi, to be slit."
"Do you think well of such a deed, Olaf?"
"Augusta," I answered, "in this city I make it my business not to think, for if I did I should certainly go mad."
"Still, on this matter I command you to think, and to speak the truth of your thoughts. No harm shall come to you, whatever they may be."
"Augusta, I obey you. I think that whoever did this wicked thing must be a devil, either returned from that hell of which everyone is so fond of talking here, or on the road thither."
"Oh! you think that, do you? So I was right when I told Martina that there was only one honest opinion to be had in Constantinople and I knew where to get it. Well, most severe and indignant judge, suppose I tell you it was I who commanded that this deed should be done. Then would you change your judgment?"
"Not so, Augusta. I should only think much worse of you than ever I did before. If these great persons were traitors to the State, they should have been executed. But to torment them, to take away the sight of heaven and to bring them to the level of dumb beasts, all that their actual blood may not be on the tormentors' hand--why, the act is vile. So, at least, it would be held in those northern lands which you are pleased to call barbarian."