"By death," I answered, "of which a hundred means lie to my hand.

You have robbed me of one, but what does that matter when so many remain?
I will go where you and your love cannot pursue me." "Very well, Child of Kings," he said, "but how about that tall Gentile who has caught your eyes, and his companions?
They, too, have recovered, and they shall die every one of them after a certain fashion (which, I Maqueda, will not set down, since there are some things that ought not to be written).

If you die, they die; as I told you, they die as a wolf dies that is caught by the shepherds; they die as a baboon dies that is caught by the husbandman." Now I looked this way and that, and found that there was no escape.

So I made a bargain.
"Joshua," I said, "let these men go and I swear upon the name of our mother, she of Sheba, that I will marry you.

Keep them and kill them, and you will have none of me." Well, in the end, because he desired me and the power that went with me, he consented.
Then I played my part.