Say, what were you about to do, O Child of Kings?
Take the fat Joshua to your breast ?" "Nay, Barung, I was about to take _this_ husband to my breast," and I showed him the knife that was hidden in my marriage robe.
"No," he said, smiling, "I think the knife was for Joshua first.

Still, you are a brave woman who could save the life of him you love at the cost of your own.

Yet, bethink you, Child of Kings, for many a generation your mothers have been queens, and under me you may still remain a queen.

How will one whose blood has ruled so long endure to serve a Western man in a strange land ?" "That is what I go to find out, Barung, and if I cannot endure, then I shall come back again, though not to rule the Abati, of whom I wash my hands for ever.

Yet, Barung, my heart tells me I shall endure." "The Child of Kings has spoken," he said, bowing to me.