Ay, and I will make it, for, filled with hate for the white man, already the great tribes are gathering to my banners in ten armies, each of them ten thousand strong.

Once let them march beneath yonder walls, and before they leave it Zimboe, city of gold, shall be nothing but a heap of ruins, and a habitation of the dead.

Such shall be my vengeance; but I seek love more than vengeance, for what will it avail me to butcher all that people of traders if--as well may chance in the accidents of war--I lose her whom I desire, whose beauty shall be my crown of crowns, and whose mind shall make me great indeed?
"Therefore, Metem, if may be, I would win her without war; let the war come afterwards, as come it must, for the time is ripe.

And though she turned from me, this I should have done, had it not been for yonder prince Aziel, whom she met in a strange fashion, and straightway learned to love.

Now the thing is more difficult.