Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/121

Rh have this new disease as lightly as thou passed through the ills of thy infancy. I will say no more.”

“A good resolution, sweet friend. Now I will approach the maiden, and seek to comfort her for her hard fate in being my captive. Alas! if she be my prisoner of war, I am hers by love. Thou art sure to say my case is the worse of the two.”

As the king approached Campaspe, she trembled more and more. For what fate the monarch designed her, the frightened girl knew nor guessed not. When he asked her graciously to throw aside the mantle which shrouded her head and face, she blamed the shield of glittering metal on the wall beside her, which showed her that in spite of tears and sorrow she was never more radiantly fair.

With courteous interest the monarch asked how she and her companion had fared during their journey; if all her wishes had been obeyed by the slaves whom he had set to attend her; and as she faltered out her answers to his questioning, he gazed on her blushing face with an interest which, she could not disguise from herself, was not less flattering than the mirror of steel which had revealed to her her beauty.

“I have prepared apartments near our own palace for thee, where everything shall be