Page:The Song of the Sirens.djvu/81

 which had become less and less insistent as the hours passed. Through it Anna was aware of a different sound.

She heard the clank and tinkle of jangling armor and glanced across the court. Between two pillars of the lower colonnade in front of the main central doorway stood Iarbas. The scarlet plume of his helmet-crest nodded still and waved as his crimson cloak fluttered and undulated behind him with the impetus of his checked haste; the dawn-light and the fire-light glittered and gleamed on the brow-piece of his helmet, on the gilded links of his chain corselet, on the burnished scales of his broad kilt-straps, and shone on the great round shield and the broad polished points of the twin spears his armor-bearer carried behind him. His eyes were bright in his big swarthy face, and roved about the court gazing at the huddled crowd of servitors and menials under the side-colonnades, at the dying glow of the sinking pyre, at Anna and her attendants above. He waved his hand backward with a single imperious gesture and strode across the court. Anna heard his tread on the tesselated floor of the gallery and looked around at him, half sitting up, but still limply leaning upon the balustrade, her head against the pillar. She said nothing.

Weeping did not disfigure Anna. Her pale