He answered, “I might not know him, dread Lord, for the mask and great hooded cloak he weareth. It is a little man, and speaketh a husky whisper.” “Admit him,” said King Gorice; and when Sriva was come in, masked and hooded and holding forth the ring, he said, “Thou lookest questionable, albeit this token opened a way for thee. Put off these trappings and let me know thee.” But she, speaking still in a husky whisper, prayed that they might be private ere she disclosed herself. So the King bade leave them private. “Dread Lord,” said the soldier, “is it your will that I stand ready without the door?” “No,” said the King. “Void the ante-chamber, set the guard, and let none disturb me.” And to Sriva he said, “If thine errand prove not more honester than thy looks, this is an ill night’s journey for thee. At the lifting of my finger I am able to metamorphose thee to a mandrake. If indeed thou beest aught else already.” When they were alone the Lady Sriva doffed her mask and put back her hood, uncovering her head that was crowned with two heavy trammels of her dark brown hair bound up and interwoven above her brow and ears and pinned with silver pins headed with garnets coloured like burning coals. The King beheld her from under the great shadow of his brows, darkly, not by so much as the moving of an eyelid or a lineament of his lean visage betraying aught that passed in his mind at this disclosing. She trembled and said, “O my Lord the King, I hope you will indulge and pardon in me this trespass. Truly I marvel at mine own boldness how I durst come to you.” With a gesture of his hand the King bade her be seated in a chair on his right beside the table. “Thou needest not be afraid, madam,” he said. “That I admit thee, let it make thee assured of welcome. Let me know thine errand.” The fire of her father’s wine shuddered down within her like a low-lit flame in a gust of wind as she sat there alone with King Gorice XII. in the circle of the lamplight. She took a deep breath to still her heart’s fluttering and said, “O King, I was much afeared to come, and it was to ask you a boon: a little thing for you to give, Lord, and yet to me that am the least of your handmaids a great thing to receive. But now I am come indeed, I durst not ask it.” The glitter of his eyes looking out from their eaves of darkness dismayed her; and little comfort had she of the iron crown at his elbow, bright with gems and fierce with uplifted claws, or of the copper serpents interlaced that made the arms of his chair, or of the bright image of the lamp reflected in the table top where were red streaks like streaks of blood and black streaks like edges of swords streaking the green shining surface of the stone.