Next day we were much more lively, our work was pleasingly interspersed with questions about our native country, what the ladies were like there, etc., all of which we answered as best as we could in Zu-Vendi, and I heard Good assuring his teacher that her loveliness was to the beauties of Europe as the sun to the moon, to which she replied with a little toss of the head, that she was a plain teaching woman and nothing else, and that it was not kind ‘to deceive a poor girl so’. Then we had a little singing that was really charming, so natural and unaffected. The Zu-Vendi love-songs are most touching. On the third day we were all quite intimate. Good narrated some of his previous love affairs to his fair teacher, and so moved was she that her sighs mingled with his own. I discoursed with mine, a merry blue-eyed girl, upon Zu-Vendian art, and never saw that she was waiting for an opportunity to drop a specimen of the cockroach tribe down my back, whilst in the corner Sir Henry and his governess appeared, so far as I could judge, to be going through a lesson framed on the great educational principles laid down by Wackford Squeers Esq., though in a very modified or rather spiritualized form. The lady softly repeated the Zu-Vendi word for ‘hand’, and he took hers; ‘eyes’, and he gazed deep into her brown orbs; ‘lips’, and — but just at that moment my young lady dropped the cockroach down my back and ran away laughing. Now if there is one thing I loathe more than another it is cockroaches, and moved quite beyond myself, and yet laughing at her impudence, I took up the cushion she had been sitting on and threw it after her. Imagine then my shame — my horror, and my distress — when the door opened, and, attended by two guards only, in walked Nyleptha. The cushion could not be recalled (it missed the girl and hit one of the guards on the head), but I instantly and ineffectually tried to look as though I had not thrown it. Good ceased his sighing, and began to murder Zu-Vendi at the top of his voice, and Sir Henry whistled and looked silly. As for the poor girls, they were utterly dumbfounded.
And Nyleptha! she drew herself up till her frame seemed to tower even above that of the tall guards, and her face went first red, and then pale as death.
‘Guards,’ she said in a quiet choked voice, and pointing at the fair but unconscious disciple of Wackford Squeers, ‘slay me that woman.’
The men hesitated, as well they might.
‘Will ye do my bidding,’ she said again in the same voice, ‘or will ye not?’
Then they advanced upon the girl with uplifted spears. By this time Sir Henry had recovered himself, and saw that the comedy was likely to turn into a tragedy.
‘Stand back,’ he said in a voice of thunder, at the same time getting in front of the terrified girl. ‘Shame on thee, Nyleptha — shame! Thou shalt not kill her.’
‘Doubtless thou hast good reason to try to protect her. Thou couldst hardly do less in honour,’ answered the infuriated Queen; ‘but she shall die — she shall die,’ and she stamped her little foot.
‘It is well,’ he answered; ‘then will I die with her. I am thy servant, oh Queen; do with me even as thou wilt.’ And he bowed towards her, and fixed his clear eyes contemptuously on her face.
‘I could wish to slay thee too,’ she answered; ‘for thou dost make a mock of me;’ and then feeling that she was mastered, and I suppose not knowing what else to do, she burst into such a storm of tears and looked so royally lovely in her passionate distress, that, old as I am, I must say I envied Curtis his task of supporting her. It was rather odd to see him holding her in his arms considering what had just passed — a thought that seemed to occur to herself, for presently she wrenched herself free and went, leaving us all much disturbed.