This ring, it will be remembered, we returned to her with much ceremony at our first public audience.

Oliver grew pale at the sight of it.
"How did you come by this ?" he asked hoarsely.

"Is she who alone may wear it dead ?" "Yes, yes," answered the voice, a feigned voice as I thought.

"The Child of Kings whom you knew is dead, and having no more need for this ancient symbol of her power, she bequeathed it to you whom she remembered kindly at the last." Oliver covered his face with his hands and turned away.
"But," went on the speaker slowly, "the woman Maqueda whom once it is said you loved----" He dropped his hands and stared.
"-- --the woman Maqueda whom once it is said you--loved--still lives." Then the hood slipped back, and in the glow of the rising sun we saw the face beneath.
It was that of Maqueda herself! A silence followed that in its way was almost awful.
"My Lord Oliver," asked Maqueda presently, "do you accept my offering of Queen Sheba's ring ?" NOTE BY MAQUEDA Once called Walda Nagasta and Takla Warda, that is, Child of Kings and Bud of the Rose, once also by birth Ruler of the Abati people, the Sons of Solomon and Sheba.
I, Maqueda, write this by the command of Oliver, my lord, who desires that I should set out certain things in my own words.
Truly all men are fools, and the greatest of them is Oliver, my lord, though perhaps he is almost equalled by the learned man whom the Abati called Black Windows, and by the doctor, Son of Adam.

Only he who is named Roderick, child of Adam, is somewhat less blind, because having been brought up among the Fung and other people of the desert, he has gathered a little wisdom.