And there is worse to tell: Beloved, they purpose to give me up as a peace-offering to Ithobal.

Yes, even my father is of the plot, for in his despair he thinks it his duty to sacrifice his daughter to save the town, if, indeed, that will suffice to save us." "But you are the Baaltis and inviolate." "In such a time the goddess herself would not be held inviolate in Zimboe, much less her priestess, Aziel.

I have discovered that this very night they have laid their plans to seize me.

Mesa and others have been chosen for the deed, and afterwards they think to offer me as a bribe to Ithobal, who will take no other price." Aziel groaned aloud: "It were better that we should die," he said.
She nodded and answered: "It were better that _I_ should die.

But hear me, for I also have a plan, and there is still hope, though very little.
Perhaps, as you drew near to Zimboe by the coast road, you may have noted three miles or more from the gates of the city, and almost overhanging the path on which you travelled, a shoulder of the mountain where the rock is cut away, showing the narrow entrance to a cave closed with a gate of bronze ?" "I saw it," answered Aziel, "and was told that there was the most sacred burying-place of the city." "It is the tomb of the high-priestesses of Baaltis," went on Elissa, "and this day at sunset I must visit it to lay an offering upon the shrine of her who was the Baaltis before me, entering alone, and closing the gate, for it is not lawful that any one should pass in there with me.