I will keep watch for you there.
Now or never, Curtis.' We passed on into the other room.

Nyleptha was sitting, her hands before her, and a sad anxious look upon her lovely face.
A little way off was Sorais talking to Good in her slow measured tones.
The time went on; in another quarter of an hour I knew that, according to their habit, the Queens would retire.

As yet, Sir Henry had had no chance of saying a word in private: indeed, though we saw much of the royal sisters, it was by no means easy to see them alone.

I racked my brains, and at last an idea came to me.
'Will the Queen be pleased,' I said, bowing low before Sorais, 'to sing to her servants?
Our hearts are heavy this night; sing to us, oh Lady of the Night' (Sorais' favourite name among the people).
'My songs, Macumazahn, are not such as to lighten the heavy heart, yet will I sing if it pleases thee,' she answered; and she rose and went a few paces to a table whereon lay an instrument not unlike a zither, and struck a few wandering chords.
Then suddenly, like the notes of some deep-throated bird, her rounded voice rang out in song so wildly sweet, and yet with so eerie and sad a refrain, that it made the very blood stand still.

Up, up soared the golden notes, that seemed to melt far away, and then to grow again and travel on, laden with all the sorrow of the world and all the despair of the lost.