Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

At the Queen’s Mercy

At the Queen’s Mercy

By Mabel Fuller Blodgett

AUTHOR OF

The Aspen Shade, * In Poppy Land, * Fairy Tales

Illustrated by Henry Sandham, R.C.A.

Lamson, Wolffe and Company

Boston, New York and London

MDCCCXCVII

Copyright, 1897,

By Lamson, Wolffe and Company.

All rights reserved.

Norwood Press

F. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith

Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

To My Husband

This Book is Dedicated

Contents

List of Illustrations

At the Queen’s Mercy

Chapter I
A Slave’s Secret

I am a plain man, and to do a plain man’s work was ever more to my taste than to set down with a clerk’s skill such happenings as have befallen.

Nevertheless, something within me spurs me onward; for, to tell the truth, I am loath to die leaving no record of the sights that I have seen; sights to brand the memory and stir the blood, and doings to turn one hot and cold, years after the doers thereof have crumbled into dust.

Fate, fickle jade, has willed a peaceful end for me—a man from whom peace has ever been afar off. Yet by my fireside I am not alone: Zobo, the Mighty, wrestles in the flames; Astolba, my fair white dove Astolba, gently smiles upon my waking dreams, and she, the Queen with deadly wondrous beauty, like some fair poisonous flower, flaunts before my eyes.

But enough of fancies. I must on to the beginning of the marvellous tale in which I was to play so large a part. A tale strange beyond common reckoning; strange beyond belief, were I not known not only as a man whose inches well may bear him out, but also as one little versed in the art of embroidering blunt facts with fine imaginings.

It chanced in this wise:—

We sat by the fire, Gaston Lestrade and I, one dark and stormy evening, for this was the end of the rainy season. We were in the African interior; fortune had dealt hardly with us. It is not needful to the purpose of this tale to tell by what and by whom we had come to so dismal a pass; enough that we found ourselves wet, hungry, surrounded by hostile savages, and, worse than all, poor to nakedness after four months’ irksome traffic in ivory and gum. Lestrade sat pulling his fine black mustache, for all his present wretchedness, with the air of a dandy on the Parisian boulevard, though there was not a petticoat within miles, and death, from one cause or another, more like to be our portion than amorous adventure.

A quick eye for a woman had my comrade, and a heart big enough to hold all the sex, or, at least, such as were personable. But over and above all this, Gaston Lestrade was a man to die for a friend, albeit with a jest on his lips, and I forbore to meddle with his pastimes.

For myself, I cannot deny that women have ever held me in esteem, and once or twice have urged me to retreat by hot advances. The reason of this has ever seemed to me that I am big of limb and brawny withal; that I am slow to speech and anger, yet enduring in that to which I have set my mind. And this is not commonly the manner of the sex, who look up to the power or strength such as the Lord has not given them, whose tongues are nimble, and whose fancies float hither and thither with every breath, like thistledown before the wind. And so they take to that which is not of their fashion.

Every man to his taste, say I—the wooing of maids to one, the clash of arms to another, and for me comfort and plenty, and as little danger as possible, which is in itself a strange thing, since it has been decreed that all my life till now be spent for war and women. But I must hark back to the fireside. We had taken stock of our resources, and with the less trouble, inasmuch as they were few.

“Four biscuit, mon ami,” said Lestrade, “and a few strips of smoked meat. Truly, Africa is an excellent place to starve in.” And he yawned as though the subject did not closely concern him.

Which nettled me, and I spoke sharply: “Our powder and shot are nearly spent. The king, next whose village we lie, loves us not; his fourth wife can perhaps tell the reason.”

Here Lestrade yawned again.

“A spiritless wench, but not uncomely,” he murmured in his own tongue.

“The palm-oil wine is gone,” I finished.

Here my comrade was pricked to interest. He raised the flask and set it down with a sigh.

“Hélas, thou art ever right, my Dering. What shall it be? Do we fight our way to shore, or on through the jungle, or does it meet with thy judgment that we await here the tender mercies of our royal neighbor yonder?”

I gave the fire an ill-tempered shove with my foot, for I was cold and hungry, and it has ever been my experience that a man’s sweetness of temper will suffer from the emptiness of his stomach. “You know it is equally impossible to go or to stay,” I answered shortly. Lestrade held up his hand for silence, and through the heavy patter of the rain on the roof of our hut came a noise that was not of the jungle. Gaston looked to the priming of his rifle; I held my finger on the trigger of my own.

“Some one running, and for his life,” said Lestrade, under his breath, and even as he spoke, the door of our cabin was thrust open, and a man leaped into the fire-lit circle.

He stood a hunted creature, quivering and amazed for an instant, the next, an arrow sped through the doorway and buried its point in his shoulder.

A yell of triumph rang through the forest, and two Fan warriors, hideous in war-paint, followed. They faltered on seeing Lestrade and me, but quickly plucked forth their spears to do us injury.

It was not the time or place for argument. The report from Gaston’s rifle rang out sharply, and the first savage pitched headlong and lay still, a thin, dark stream trickling from the body over the earthen threshold. The second, I dropped also, but not so neatly, for he wriggled like a big black snake into the underbrush, and was lost to sight. Seeing which I turned to look at our visitor, but here again Lestrade was quicker than I.

The negro was leaning heavily against the side of the hut, and Gaston held in his hand the slender arrow which he had plucked from the man’s shoulder.

“A pin prick,” I began, with some contempt, for indeed the stranger’s pallor, black though he was, and my comrade’s grave face, seemed greater tribute than was needful for so slight a hurt.

“Poisoned,” Gaston answered briefly, and even as he said it I knew that it was so.

I took the piece of bamboo in my hand. It was some ten inches long and sharpened at one end. I stooped and picked up the bag of skin that lay on the floor beside the body, still warm, of our fallen foe. Arranged in careful order within were other arrows like to the first, each red-tipped, each a swift and fatal messenger.

There was no hope, and the wounded man knew it.

He was a tall, muscular savage, a little stooped and grizzled with age, but powerful, save for the death sickness that had begun already to loosen his joints.

Many lines crossed and recrossed his face, and as I looked on him more closely, I saw that his features were not those of the neighboring tribe, nor indeed did his face resemble the natives that I had seen. Furthermore, his skin was more bronze than black.

A curious woven strip falling from one shoulder over the right breast bound his middle. Save for this, the man was naked, and I saw that some strange torture had twisted and distorted his wrists and hands. Moreover, his body bore in several places the mark of hot iron, and my gorge rose at the thought of the infernal cruelties that had been practised.

Meanwhile Lestrade, with something of a woman’s touch, and in that was I ever far behind my comrade, well-known as he is for skill and nicety in sickness,—Gaston, I say, had helped the stranger down, had placed a packet beneath his head, and now stood waiting, helpless to do more and pitiful of the drops of agony that stood bead-like upon the forehead of the dying man.

The end would not be long. Presently the savage spoke, and in the dialect of the neighboring tribe, but with the words somewhat clipped and altered as one speaking a strange language to strange ears.

“I am Sagamoso, priest of the Council,” he said, “and the door of Shimra opens.” He raised himself with pain, upon his elbow, and his eyes glittered strangely in the firelight. “Nevertheless, promise, O men of white countenance, that you will bury me, my feet to the rising sun, ashes upon my breast, in the name of Edba and of Hed; and deep, deep, so that no beast shall rend me, no enemy loose me from my grave. Inasmuch shall I escape the last evil.”

“Christian burial, and no heathen mummery shall you have,” said I; for in truth I was sore that this savage should have fled to us, as if our case was not evil enough, and so was like to bring the whole tribe of Fan, like a swarm of angry bees, about our ears.

Lestrade was silent, and the stranger catching at my tone looked from one to the other of us, for a space, in silence also.

Then, as if some inward power thrust from him words he fain would have held back, he burst forth:—

“O men of white countenance! My hour is at hand. Swear by Edba and by Hed to bury me as I have besought, and the place of the woman and of the treasure shall be known to you, and, moreover, the secret way.”

“The woman!” said Lestrade, drawing in his breath quickly.

“The treasure!” I cried, and neither of us thought of the strangeness of such words from the lips of a savage.

Then by Edba and by Hed we swore; for the man’s words had somehow taken hold upon our minds, and afterwards, all-curious, half-believing, for the very strangeness of its telling lured us on, we heard the story of Sagamoso, one time priest of the people of the Walled City, now outcast and slave.

I cannot tell it as he told it there in the African forest, with the rain falling heavily without, and the fire casting strange shadows on the face of the dying man, convulsed now and again by the action of the poison that was eating out his life. But the things that he said are set down in due order, though, as I told you, I am no scribe and cannot cunningly interweave and polish my words as the learned do.

“I am not of this people nor of this place,” said Sagamoso; “my home is many miles hence, and the path is hidden and beset with peril. But two of the people of white countenance like to yours have ever come so far,—one a man old, not so much with years as with weariness and the toil of wanderings; the other, his daughter, straight and slender, and fair above the common lot of woman.

“Him we slaughtered there at the outer gate, as is the law for strangers. The maid was at the Queen’s behest brought to the palace, but whether as the bride of Hed, I know not. Such service rendered to our god is like to be her portion: nevertheless, three moons must wax and wane before the feast, wherefore you who are of her people can yet save her from the death marriage, unless, indeed, Hed be wroth, or Lah, the Queen, set her will to thwart you.

“Yet even so, surely of maids there are many, but of treasure like to that in the secret storehouse of Edba, there is not in the whole world.

“I, Sagamoso, priest of the Council, tell it you. O men of white countenance! torture like to this,”—and he raised his twisted claw-like hands,—“torture of hot iron and seared flesh could not have wrung it from me. But if I be not buried with the rites of the dread god whose servant I yet am, I must walk forever in the outer darkness, weariness unutterable my portion throughout all ages. Because of the sin that I have sinned, the door of Shimra indeed is shut before my face, but the peace of nothingness is still within my grasp, and for that peace will I betray the secret of the city that has cast me forth, the secret of the jewels and the fragrant gums, the ivory and precious woods, the gold and rich garments and the wines of price, that lay hid within the bowels of the earth, and guarded by the name that may not be spoken.”

Here the stranger’s voice faltered and was still, and Lestrade and I looked at each other in amazement that was yet half belief, for the passion in the tones rang through the hut, and that the manner of this heathen burial was to him that asked it of vital import, none might doubt.

“This maiden,” said Lestrade, as though the thought of the treasure had passed him by, “what dreadful fate threatens her, and where is this walled city?”

The poison was doing its work all too well. Thickly and with difficulty the words came from the swollen lips of the dying man. He thrust aside the woven strip that covered his breast.

“Look!” he gasped; “the secret way.” Lestrade and I bent close and there sure enough, tattooed in lines of blue and red, on a spot above the heart as big as a man’s palm, we saw a rude map.

“Straight through the jungle northward,” breathed the priest, “by the swamp, by the waterfall, through the mountains, where beyond lieth the Pass of Blood! Behold the sign!”

His wavering forefinger touched the woven garment, and we saw the fantastic outline of an evil, leering god, about whose squat and crooked body twined a monstrous serpent.

“Bid the gate open in the name of Hed!” he continued, his voice growing full and resonant once more. “And look you—speak not of Sagamoso, the betrayer of the trust, the defiler of the sanctuary. Him, they think long since dead. Let his name be forgotten lest it be cursed before the Council.”

“But the maid, the maid!” cried Lestrade.

The eyes of the stranger narrowed. A curious light blazed in their depths. With a superhuman effort, the dying man raised himself from the ground.

“I am a priest of the Council,” he cried, in a strange, chanting kind of voice. “I have been traitor. I have been slave. To Edba and to Hed have I turned my back. But my gods remember, my gods are strong, my gods punish. Think not to wrest from the Snake, his bride.”

The strange, triumphant note broke. “By Edba and by Hed have you sworn,” he muttered, and so passed.

Lestrade and I had learned the slave’s secret, and the leaven for good or ill was working within us, silently indeed, but with a strange, persistent, and fateful power.

First, without more words, we buried him, and with the rites he had demanded, for I am a man of my word, and Lestrade follows my leading easily in that which affects him not nearly.

Then—for the day was at hand—we considered briefly that which had taken place and that which was to come.

Our present fortunes could well bear mending. The priest’s words of a woman to be saved, and a treasure to be gained, had fired our blood. Life held little of safety for us here, and the end of it was that Lestrade’s daring spirit weighed down my more prudent advices, and the die was cast.

Once having resolved upon the enterprise, I put from me, as is my habit, all thought against the wisdom of the undertaking, though to perish in the jungle in the pursuit of a phantom city, or to be slain at its gates in reality, seemed like to be our portion.

Sagamoso’s last words echoed in my mind. That hatred of the white stranger had lurked in the eyes of the dying man I doubted not, but needs must when the devil drives. Wherefore, without more speech upon the matter, our scanty goods were packed, and Lestrade, with a gay tune upon his lips, and I, the more silent for his light-heartedness, set forth upon our journeyings.

Chapter II
The Pass of Blood

The first step now was to flee from the wrath of the Fan tribe.

Cannibals were they, and over and above their just cause for offence I felt that they had long been tempted to try the flavor of a white-man roast. However, I was not minded to end my days in so inglorious a manner; neither would Gaston’s high spirit brook the thought of such disgrace. We pushed our canoe, therefore, with all good-will up stream, and by dint of hard paddling, in the art of which I stand second to none, we had soon a comfortable distance between ourselves and our neighbors.

Lestrade had copied with feminine painstaking, on a strip of hide, every line of the rude map tattooed upon Sagamoso’s brawny chest. I, for my part, had taken with us the woven garment, which I saw was made of the hair of some animal, a goat probably, and which was colored with vivid dyes in orange, crimson, and blue.

Following, as well as we might, the chart that was now our only guide, towards nightfall we beached our canoe, and I, by great good-luck, speared a small monkey that chattered in the branches of a tree overhead. We quickly made a fire, and Lestrade served a steak which, garnished with plantains, left nothing to be desired.

The howling of a panther sounded faintly through my slumbers that first night of our encampment, but the protecting fire kept the great cat at bay, and he had gone by day-break.

We arose refreshed and ready to look lightly upon our quest, all undisturbed by the slenderness of our ammunition and stores. So one hour passed and another. We had begun to suffer much from the thorns that tore our flesh, from innumerable flies that ran their red-hot needles into every unprotected inch of our bodies and even through our clothes.

Our shoes, too, had by this time been cut in strips, and our feet were swollen and bleeding.

But these were hardships that every traveller looks to, and we were consumed with the desire to find the Walled City and behold the maiden and the treasure that its temple held.

Indeed, we talked of little else. Gaston turned the slave’s tale this way and that, and his nimble tongue wove pictures all different in form, but all ending happily with processions of triumph, where crowned as kings we bore away the damsel and the gold.

Even to my sober thought, these tales lightened much the journey; yet, though I am not given to fancies, the eyes of the heathen god outlined upon the dead priest’s garment, at such times seemed to gleam, with a kind of horrible joy and malice, and the snake’s crest reared, and I could almost hear the thick hiss in which the python vents its rage.

It is not my purpose to relate each adventure as it happened. Perils from man and beast there were. Once we were captured by a strange tribe and escaped narrowly, leaving behind us much of vital use to us in our journeying. Once I saved Lestrade, helpless and unarmed, from the fury of a gorilla. Once we fled for our lives before the onslaught of an army of brown ants, that strip to the bone every living thing that ventures in the line of its strange march.

So on, and at last we reached the waterfall set down upon our chart, and here a thing happened that kindled anew the fire of our drooping hearts.

It was a thing wonderful in itself, more wonderful as explaining the parting words of the slave Sagamoso, and it clearly showed us that we had not strayed from the right path, and that the jungle had given up its secret.

This waterfall was higher than any I had seen in Africa. It fell with a rush and a roar loud enough to be heard very far off, and it was split at its lowest part by a tall pillar of stone, on which was carved—and this was what cheered us like wine—the grotesque image of the snake-encircled god.

How such a pillar could have been set up by mortal hands in such a place, exposed as it was to the fury of the downpour of this great body of water, was in itself a marvel, and threw a new light on the people that, with our small store of weapons, we two men had set out to brave.

“The waterfall must have been turned from its course,” said Lestrade.

And I, seeing no better way out of it, agreed.

Yet was this no time to stop and argue the matter, so we took up our burdens once more, and, with renewed hope, pressed on; and the more certainly in that here the jungle broke, leaving before us a broad track, as though an army of elephants had fled or been driven along the way.

This did not astonish us at the moment, for there are many such clearings in the African forest; but as we sped onward, and the broad thoroughfare still stretched before us, as far as eye could see, we knew this was no common happening.

Night found us yet on this untrammelled and solitary highway; and as the shadows closed, I am not ashamed to confess that a chill settled on my heart, and that even Lestrade grew silent.

However, naught chanced to disturb our slumbers, and looking well to our arms, we marched briskly forward.

Lestrade was a little ahead, and on a sudden he gave a sharp cry and—disappeared. The ground had opened and swallowed him. I pressed forward, and my horrified gaze took in at a flash the devilish trap into which he had fallen.

A pit thirty feet in depth, twenty feet or more in width, stretched, as I afterwards found, from one side of the road to the other. It had been artfully covered with a fine mesh of woven grass, and this mesh by several inches of earth, so that the fiendish contrivance was hidden from the most careful gaze. Air-holes, the use of which I will tell presently, were so arranged as to be concealed by the dense foliage of the jungle. The plaited grass of course could not bear up any weight of moment, although small animals might safely venture across.

But this was not all. A loathsome mass of serpents crawled and twisted upon the bottom of this pit; and hanging by his fingers from a slight projecting rock on the side, some twelve feet down, I saw the agonized form of my friend.

“Courage, Gaston!” I cried, and cheerfully, though my soul was sick within me. “I will save you—or shoot you,” I added inwardly.

Even in that moment of horror the old mocking smile played for an instant on the white face beneath.

“Agreed,” Lestrade answered, in a voice that he fain would have copied after my own.

I slipped the woven garment of the priest Sagamoso from about my body, and knotted it into a running noose. This I tied securely to the stock of my rifle, and leaning over the pit, I swung it down in the hope that I might fasten it under Gaston’s shoulders and so ease the terrible strain that I could see grew instantly more unbearable.

I beheld the white bones of animals or men in the pit beneath. The fetid odor of that nameless place assailed my nostrils, and I saw, merciful heaven! that it should be so—the noose fell short.

I looked heavily upward, and there, carved on a tree that overtopped the pit, I beheld the horrid image of the snake-encircled god.

The face leered down upon me, and the eyes taunted me, vile slits that they were, in the impassive cruelty of that smooth countenance.

Then a frenzy seized me and lent strength to bone and sinew.

“I will save you, man, or I will die with you.” The sound came thickly from between my teeth.

I thrust my spear deep into the ground beside the pit. I tied about me one end of the garment of the dead priest, and fastened the other to the spear. Then with my naked hands I made a kind of foothold in the close packed earth, and let myself down over the edge. If there was a flaw in the iron forged by savage hands, the spear would snap. The woven strip of cloth that cut into my flesh might part under the strain, or the stake be pulled from its earthen bed. I dared not look below, but I heard Lestrade’s quick, hard breathing.

That twelve feet seemed a hundred, and the snail pace all the slower for the galloping pulses of my heart.

All at once—for the ear grows keen in danger—I heard Gaston’s fingers slipping,—slipping along the rock.

“Friend, I can do no more.”

The faint whisper was borne upward from the pit. With a superhuman effort I let go my hold with one hand, and my fingers closed upon the collar of Lestrade’s shirt.

He hung a dead weight, limp in my grasp, and I thought my arms would start from their sockets. The spear above us swung to one side; the sweat from my forehead ran down and blinded my eyes.

With an animal instinct I clung to the side of the pit. I could feel the veins in my temples full to bursting, and for one brief moment, ease from that terrible rack seemed more to be desired than a friend’s life; more precious than sunlight; a better thing than honor itself. The next instant, and my foot, by the Lord’s mercy, touched the stone that had stayed Lestrade’s fall.

Inch by inch, I, John Dering, lifted that unconscious body, while the birds twittered in the branches overhead, and the pitiless sun beat down, and the god of the people of the Walled City kept evil watch, and the serpents hissed and writhed in the pit beneath.

At last I had one arm over the edge of that place of torment. One final mighty effort, and Lestrade was safe, while the spear shot from its socket, and fell tinkling into the depths below. How I drew myself up to lie upon the edge beside my friend, I do not know. My blood had turned to water in my veins, and I was as weak as a new-born babe. I could not have lifted a finger to have escaped a thousand deaths. Earth and sky came together in one black threatening mass; the next I knew Lestrade was pouring water on my forehead, and moreover kissing me on both cheeks—a foreign practice I could never stomach, and one which soon brought me to my senses.

That day we rested. The next we tore the cover of grass from that foul trap, and left it open to the gaze of men and beasts.

Then because I am a religious man and believe in the right conduct of human undertakings, I swore to set my face the more earnestly towards the object of our travelling. Neither to seek peace or comfort till the Walled City be found; praying that Providence might deliver into my hand the maker of that death pit, that I might presently bring him to a repentance that would be beyond the pale of backsliding forever.

“The Lord do so to me, and more also, if I follow not the leading of my conscience in this matter,” said I, and Lestrade answered, “Amen.”

Then, because we were not to be put aside like children, from that to which we had set our minds, we felled a tree, and bridged the pit and so crossed.

Much more slowly we now proceeded, for we had been taught caution, yet we marched onward, with little thought to the map, for the course lay plain before us. We were now in a mountainous country, and it had grown cool, a matter for much thanksgiving. We guessed by this and other signs that now our quest was well-nigh over, and we were right; for at length after much toil of travel we came without mishap to our journey’s end. Massed across the open appeared a pile of rock, and as we neared, I saw the lines in Lestrade’s face deepen. Nor was I untouched, for we did not doubt that before us lay the entrance to the City that we sought. We looked to our guns and came up with all caution.

The noise of the jungle was in our ears, but of human sight or sound there was none. The mass in front towered above us to the sky, and we saw that it had been set in place by some gigantic machinery unknown to the civilized world. The massive barrier was formed of rock, fitted together with cunning, and smooth like glass.

The nature of the rock was strange to us, for it was splashed here and there by great red stains, like gouts of blood; and the fancy was further heightened by a scarlet creeper that clung and fed itself, and well-nigh covered the base of the ponderous mass.

There was no gate nor doorway nor visible opening of any kind, and on each side of the great wall grew dense a prickly thorn, so tough that it turned the edges of our axes, and we saw the hopelessness of cutting through our way, even if the wall of stone extended not further in the African forest than eye could see.

That this was the mocking work of the people we had come to seek was plain; for here, as before, by the waterfall and overlooking the pit, here on the central rock and far above our heads, was painted the same gross image of their god.

We hoped to find some hidden entrance, and we went over the wall’s surface, Lestrade and I, with patient fingers, all the long morning, and again and again, till night had well-nigh settled down upon us. But all in vain. The unyielding mass barred our further progress, and, as before, the serpent god gloated over the failure of our hopes. Mad at this ending, I seized my gun, and aimed it straight at the hideous face above. The ball sped surely, as my shots ever do. It flattened itself against the surface of the rock, between the creature’s eyes.

There was a dull rumbling, a sound as of chains that slid and struck against stone or metal. Then the central stone slowly turned, as on a pivot, and forth from the opening poured a wild stream of men.

Chapter III
What Next Befell

On they came, like a swarm of angry bees from a hive; and I saw that they were mostly men of great stature, though mine, I judged, would still overtop the tallest, the which I do not say boastfully, but as one bearing witness to the truth.

Now that we had come at last to open war, my mind was clear, as my hand and heart were steady, and I could take calm note of this, as of other matters.

Lestrade was humming a gay tune at my side, his rifle well aimed, his finger on the trigger.

These people were clearly brethren of the dead priest Sagamoso, for they were of the same bronze color; and as they drew nearer, I perceived the regularity of their features, like to his.

They carried spears and swords that flashed bright in the rays of the setting sun. They called to us in a strange language and with threatening gestures; but I am, as I have said, a peaceful man, and loath to shed blood, so with a word I restrained my more fiery Lestrade, and we abode their onslaught.

Then a spear hurtled through the air and clove the fleshy portion of my arm, and with that, the lust of conflict fell upon me, and my eyes saw red, and verily I was mad with the joy of battle.

The foremost dropped before me, shot through the heart, and the second.

They paused for an instant in their onward rush, but I thought not so much with fear or surprise, as in obedience to a command. Then they pressed forward. My rifle emptied itself into the compact living mass. Lestrade was close behind. I seized the barrel in my hand, and the first oncomer fell like an ox beneath the blow.

So, thrusting, beating down the line of shining weapons, I clove my way through, and for me there was no weariness, nor fear, nor prick of bodily hurt. Only that fierce gladness, that inasmuch as it is the man’s portion, transcends the lot of woman. There was one strange thing I noted even in the midst of the tumult. The warriors seemed bound by some observance to disable rather than to wound us. They struck heavily, it is true, but with the flat of their swords, and this I could see was from no love of the stranger.

Hate flashed from their eyes and rang in their voices; so as I laid stoutly about me, I did so with the more good-will in that I felt myself reserved with Lestrade for some more devoted sacrifice than was possible at the moment.

On a sudden the howling horde melted away, and a new enemy appeared. Down the open space, with great leaps, and with a cry, half bestial, half human in its malice, it came. A gray, furry body, fantastically striped in red and blue, two shining, bead-like eyes. This I saw; the next instant two sinewy claw-like hands were at my throat, and we were rolling over and over in the dust, the creature biting and striving to smother me in its embrace. It was strong, and it knew the tricks of wrestling. For a time neither one of us could boast of vantage.

The fight had ceased, and I dimly saw Lestrade trussed into a helpless bundle and lying upon the ground. The people of the Walled City stood in silence, resting upon their arms, like warriors of bronze.

Then the inward fury that consumed me stiffened my muscles to steel. My knee rested on the creature’s hairy chest. I seized its jaw in my hand, and forced its head slowly, slowly back.

Its eyes rolled in helpless fury; its great teeth were ground together in a rage that defied me to the worst; the tongue protruded. There was a quick snap like the breaking of sugar-cane. The giant head rolled limply to one side; the long arms relaxed their pressure. A wail of sorrow and of anger rose from the waiting throng; I stood one instant, conqueror and free! In another, I was brought heavily to my knees, and the meshes of a net encompassed me. The horde of warriors fell into line. A litter of crossed spears was quickly made, and Lestrade and I were hoisted up and so with ignominy carried onward as is a bale of goods to the warehouse. Through the cleft in the wall of the Pass of Blood, which closed with ominous silence behind us; on through a passage-way, deep, narrow, hewn out of the solid rock; so once more were we borne close guarded, into the sunlight, and within the City of the worshippers of the serpent god, the City of our golden dreams and the dead priest’s promise.

The street that opened was straight and wide, and bordered by houses of good size, generally of one story only, but built in every case of stone. Lestrade and I had never seen the like in all Africa, and the smooth, hard roadbed over which we were carried was another proof of the skill of this strange people.

Now that the stress of battle was over, I could look about me. From the open doorways of the houses peered a curious throng, men, children, and women also, but these last were close veiled, much to my good Gaston’s disappointment, as I could see.

Our bodyguard were fine, stalwart fellows; each man had filed his two upper and two lower front teeth to a point, a custom I have elsewhere observed, and one giving the countenance a singularly wolfish look. Their long black locks were braided, and the plats were interwoven with strands of golden wire. They bore spears, and long curved knives stuck in girdles of panther skin. They carried also shields of hide, and on their feet were curious sandals that were laced to the calf with leathern strips.

The heads of the leaders were decorated with feathers held in place by a jewelled clasp, and the size of the gems sent the blood tingling through my veins.

I could now see that one man commanded this array, and I was the more sorry for that inasmuch as the steely glitter of his eye when turned our way, boded his prisoners little good. He was an old man and unlike the rest, covered from neck to heel by a flowing white garment around whose hem appeared strange characters writ in scarlet. A long gray beard fell over his breast, and his hair was bound by a plain gold fillet that crossed the forehead. In his hand he carried a short rod of ebony, and I noted with growing pain the reverence with which his followers observed his every gesture.

On a sudden, he raised his staff, and like one man the warriors halted.

We had stopped before an archway that spanned the street, and which was guarded by a gate of woven bamboo made strong by bars of iron, and bristling with points of the same metal. This gate swung on a pivot, and a man appeared who held earnest conference with our aged leader.

This newcomer looked to be about thirty years of age. I judged that he was not more than five feet tall, but the spread of his shoulders was so enormous that he might well have looked shorter than his real height. His massive arms were covered with bracelets of the precious yellow metal; his garments were striped with gold and blue. He carried no spear or buckler, but a short, straight two-edged sword hung from his side.

The talk was brief but earnest, and its import was clearly not to the satisfaction of our venerable friend. At last, with a vindictive backward glance at me, he pointed his long, bony finger at the body of the dead ape, for now I knew the kind of creature whose neck I had broken.

He of the broad shoulders looked at it and then at me again with more discernment, and I thought with no less liking than before. Then as the tide of remonstrance from him of the evil eye and white beard did not cease, the other took from a fold in his garments a thing that glistened and glittered like a molten rainbow in the fading light, a girdle whose links were gold fastening squares studded with gems that defied, in their brilliance, the noonday sun.

This he laid upon the outstretched hand of the elder, and his clamor ceased, hushed to muttered murmuring. The armed throng passed the open gate, and as they defiled before him with the jewelled girdle, each touched, with outstretched palm, the breast and forehead, and the broad-shouldered one gravely bent his head in answer to their salute.

So were we borne along through a maze of streets like to that through which we had first come.

At length a halt was called, and we found ourselves before a temple built, indeed, of stone, but ornamented with carvings of fruit and flowers and strange figures of beasts and birds, covered with a curious lacquer in brilliant tints, red, green, violet, and gold.

Six men received us. They wore short, white tunics, and had shaven crowns bound by silver fillets, and they looked, I thought, with ill-concealed pleasure on the body of the dead ape.

Only a small bodyguard followed Lestrade and myself within the portals of this temple. We were borne along a curious labyrinth of passages all going downward and towards a common centre. A door of iron, heavily barred, was loosened and turned upon its pivot. We were carried within. Here our bonds were struck off by order of the chief with broad shoulders, but contrariwise, a metal girdle was locked about our waists, and this in turn was fastened by a stout but sufficiently long chain to a staple in the wall of our prison chamber.

Then the guards withdrew, and through the bars of the door I saw the leader bind the outer bolts with a small cord. This he sealed with wax, and likewise stamped the seal with a square of the jewelled girdle in such manner that none could enter without having first broken the wax itself. Then he also left us, and Lestrade and I were once more alone.

We turned with one consent, and after we had each spoken somewhat to the other on the marvels of our capture and present escape from death, and had rubbed our arms and legs to a more comfortable complexion, for our bonds had been drawn about us with no light hand, we then took, what was plainly the next thing in order, and examined with due care our forced abiding-place.

The worst thing to be said against it was the darkness, for all light filtered from a distance through slits in the roof. The room was airy enough, however, and cool. The walls were closely overlaid with sticks of bamboo, and the floor was of earth pressed into bricks and colored with some show of art. Two woven sacks were filled to a pleasant thickness with some sweet-smelling leaves, and were each provided with a soft, wide strip of cloth, so that in the matter of beds, these heathen had given us nothing of which to complain.

A long, low settle of heavy black wood was also given over to our use, and this made complete the furnishing of the place.

After some hours of converse, and when darkness had settled like a pall upon the chamber, we heard approaching footsteps, and a lighted torch was thrust through the bars of the upper part of the door and into a socket set for the purpose. Then from the same hand came a wooden platter piled high with steaming meat and plantains, a gourd of water, and three small stone pitchers brimming with palm wine.

The three pitchers, and the fact that the meat was also divided into three portions, puzzled, at the time, both Gaston and myself, but we found afterwards that as I had killed the sacred ape belonging to the service of Hed, I was supposed to be possessed of a devil to whose strength was due this feat.

One portion of all our food was therefore set apart for the use of this same familiar. That I, who am, as I have said, a religious man, should be so thought of, filled me, when I knew the facts, with righteous indignation; but at the time, in my ignorance, I cheerfully abode the insult, and the portion of the evil spirit said to dwell within me was consumed like to the other victuals, with all the zeal and constancy of a hungry man.

After our first prison meal, Lestrade and I betook ourselves to bed, and being a heavy sleeper, I knew no more until a hand shook me roughly by the shoulder. Now I could never abide being broken of my rest, a thing which was the less to be desired after the wearying events of the bygone day. So it was with little ceremony I struck out, and should perhaps, between sleeping and waking, have done some damage, had not the same hand deftly emptied the gourd of water over my head, while Gaston’s familiar voice cried, with less courtesy than need be, “Fool!”

This brought me briskly to my senses, and I was about to argue the point with him, when a new sound hushed my tongue to silence, and I needed not Lestrade’s command to listen.

A curious sound it was, and awesome, there in the midnight hour,—a sound not all a wail, not all a chant, but holding a note of jubilee so coldly cruel that it pierced with icy fear the very marrow of him who heard it.

Three times this strange song rose and fell distinctly to our waiting ears. Then it grew fainter and fainter, and died away, at length, in the distance.

I thought of my past sins and of my present straits, and I wished, with all earnestness, that I and my good rifle had not been parted.

Then sleep bore heavy upon my eyelids, and I turned over on my sack of leaves, leaving Lestrade still sitting with the white moonlight shining down through the slits in the roof above us upon his face.

Chapter IV
At the Queen’s Mercy

The next day passed without event of any kind, save the welcome advent of three good meals. I can say, for my part, that no sweet adventure could so well have satisfied my palate; and I bore the lack of present peril with all fortitude. But Lestrade was not of my mind, and ate moodily and more sparely than is fitting for the wellbeing of a Christian stomach. He spoke, moreover, ungratefully of “fattening for the sacrifice,” which, I take it, was neither a wise nor a comfortable saying, inasmuch as there appears, to my way of thinking, little profit in vain forebodings of that which is to come, and much mischief in despising present good for fear of future evil.

To be tied like a dog to a ring in the wall vexed him also, and sorely; nor did my pointing out to him the value of a submissive spirit, and its purpose in mastering the carnal pride of the flesh, greatly avail him.

For myself, I believe in patience until the time be ripe for the chastisement of the enemy, to the hurt, indeed, of his mortal body, but to the everlasting benefit of his heathen soul. But Lestrade is of a fiery nature, that cannot brook delay. Still the day wore on, and at nightfall the sound of footsteps and the clang of metal resounded once more through the rock-hewn corridors without.

Nearer came the approaching feet, and soon the light of torches could be seen by us dimly in the distance.

Then he of the broad shoulders appeared, accompanied by a guard of armed men. The seal of our prison was cut asunder, the door opened, we were loosed from our chains, and cords were bound about our wrists. Then a sign to follow was given, and we went forth.

We passed from the temple into the street, and so on through many other streets, until we halted before a great building, whose walls were set with marbles of rare tints, and embellished with silver that glistened in the moonlight.

No time was given us to look and wonder; the massive gates swung open, and we went within. From Lestrade and myself there broke an exclamation of wonder, for we had come from darkness into the brightness of a hall, the like of which is not, I verily believe, in all Africa.

For a little the glare was blinding, but soon my eyes became used to the light, and I began to look attentively about me.

This then is what I saw. The audience room was brilliant with thousands of torches that hung from silver sockets set in the wall, and depending also from pillars of carved wood that held up the roof. These torches burned clearly and with a sweet smell, and their light was shed on a countless multitude of men that lined the room itself.

The walls, too, of this great hall, though of stone, were enriched with panels of rare woods in pink and in amber, polished like the supporting pillars to a rare excellence of mirror-like brightness.

The floor was fashioned of huge blocks of marble set close and in a curious pattern, and covered towards the centre with a silk rug woven with pictures of strange beasts and birds like to those carved upon the temple we had just left.

The corners of this room were filled with plants bearing vivid flowers that gave forth a strong but very sweet scent. One end of this strange apartment was fenced off from what might be called the outer court, by a silver screen of fine open-work. Opposite this, at the further end, stood a low chair of ebony, round which coiled a carven serpent wrought in the same black wood, but with scales overlaid also in silver.

On this seat, or throne, I beheld the aged man who had commanded the force that had captured us, and whom I felt must be the High Priest of the dread god Hed.

He sat now, his chin in his hand, and he regarded us, I saw, with the same dark disfavor.

Surrounding him were men with shaven crowns and wearing woven garments like to those of the dead priest Sagamoso, and without this circle stood another line of men, but these were clothed in white like the six who had received us at the entrance of our prison house.

Beyond these again were massed warriors, naked save for their leopard-skin girdles, their shields and swords. The outer ring was composed of a curious throng of every age and condition, with women closely veiled, and even children.

Near the silver screen, on each side of the hall, sat, cross-legged, six negroes, natives of a tribe I had never seen. These were richly dressed, and before each was a drum ornamented with gold, and these they beat constantly with long spoon-shaped pieces of wood.

Behind them stood still other negroes thrumming on rude harps; the whole producing a strange, not unmusical sound, very soul-stirring in effect on him who listened. Suddenly there came from behind the silver screen the clash of cymbals. The people bent to the earth, and even the white beard of the haughty High Priest swept the ground. The warriors clashed their shields together; a cry of reverence and of welcome broke from the waiting throng; the silver screen parted. It slipped noiselessly back into the wall on either side.

Lestrade drew a quick breath, and at the same instant my eyes rested on the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen. For a little her loveliness held me fixed as though some spell had been wrought upon my vision. It was not until her voice, full and musical, broke the tense silence, that I turned my eyes away to see what setting held so fair a jewel.

And truly it was worthy. For the throne was of pure gold, and the back a peacock’s tail, so encrusted with gems as to quite hide the precious yellow metal, and the seat supported by four elephants’ tusks banded at the top by a row of egg-shaped emeralds. Behind the throne crouched a circle of mute veiled women before negro fan-bearers, erect and naked save for turban and loin cloth of golden tissue. Surrounding with drawn swords their royal mistress stood the guard of the household, each a perfect specimen of manhood and each plainly but richly dressed.

Lah, the Queen, was arrayed in some Eastern fabric, not silver and not silk, but partaking of the nature of each, and bound about the waist by the girdle that I had seen in the hands of him who had committed us to the safe keeping of the temple.

This garment was held in its place over the bare shoulder, by a clasp whereof the diamonds were as big as hazel nuts. A fillet shaped like a serpent encircled the Queen’s head and kept back from her face the long, braided locks of blue-black hair that hung, heavy also with jewels, to her knees. She alone of all the women present was unveiled. I drank in the glory of her unfathomable eyes darker than midnight. I saw the scarlet of her lips, the warm olive of her skin, the graceful lines of her strong, supple, beautiful body.

But I have little skill in such portraying. To Lestrade that task. Enough that Lah, Queen of the people of the Walled City, was not only fair above the need of woman,—the Lord knoweth the ruin that hath followed the working of the tenth part of such charm,—but she held also a subtle something in the serene cruelty of her gaze, a something in the calm command that curved her lips, to drive men mad, to fill the heart with a love that was half hatred, and a hate that could not do its worst because of the love that stayed its ordering.

So much let me say in my defence for what has followed. I am a man not easily prone to fall into the toils of women; to whom has been given subtlety to offset their weakness. But to Lah, a man’s brain and a woman’s wit; a man’s will and a woman’s will; a man’s strength and a woman’s beauty. Aye! more than woman’s. Look to it, you who would judge me, and remember likewise the end, the end also with the beginning.

But enough. I will now set down for the better ordering of this tale, what befell at the Queen’s audience, although it was not for days after that I learned the true import of that fateful evening.

Lah then spoke in this wise:—

“Who are these two strangers, whence their coming, and what their purpose?”

Then arose Agno, the High Priest, and his eyes glowed with a strange fire, and we, watching, saw his aged hand clench fast the staff of office that it held. With a fine gesture of mingled scorn and anger, he threw out the other, palm open, towards us, where, still close guarded, we stood in silence.

“Behold!” he cried, “the invaders of our City, the murderers of the sacred ape, whose hands are red with the blood of our warriors, whose sacrilegious weapons have been turned against the dread god. Yes, I have said it—violators of Hed himself!”

A sudden thrill ran through the people, and there was something in the faces turned towards us, so pitilessly cruel, that a cold chill settled on my heart, and I was well put to it to preserve the calm disdain that sat, as was fitting, upon my countenance.

Only Lah, the Queen, looked straight before her at the speaker, and her lips, I thought, curved slightly with a little smile whose meaning was not plain to me.

Agno turned towards the listening throng with a sudden change of voice and manner.

“O worshippers of the Serpent and of Edba! Shall the wrath of the gods fall upon your heads because they look down from the appointed place and see such deeds unpunished?

“Nevertheless warmed and fed and unhurt have these two rested by royal order till now in the sacred temple, and the wrath above grows black, and the thirst of the Serpent is not slaked.”

I thought I beheld again a swift change pass over the face of the Queen, like a cloud that covers for an instant the glory of the sun, but when I looked closer I saw that I was wrong, since her lips still wore that same curious half-smile.

“Doubtless,” went on the High Priest smoothly, “doubtless the Queen, who is ever zealous for the glory of the gods, but bides her time, lest in too swift a death, some pang of body or soul be lost to these defamers. Surely such thought for the honor of Hed and of Edba shall not be without reward. But I warn you,” and here his voice rang out with its old passion, “the patience of the Serpent is at an end; the god clamors for vengeance. Woe! woe! to him who setteth a stumbling-block in the way of rightful punishment.

“Let Lah, the Queen, command it! Let the torture that is the portion of these begin! Let their death and the manner of their passing plead for us and turn away, while there be yet time, the wrath that is to come!”

A hoarse murmur of applause rang through the multitude, and of their number, a man richly dressed and I judged a warrior, stepped out from among his fellows and stood in the centre, alone.

“Agno, the High Priest, has said it. We, the people, repeat it. Oh Queen, let the blood of the stranger flow freely that the gods may be appeased.”

Lah turned, and I saw then, what, bewildered by the rising storm, I had not noticed; namely, that the Queen’s sandalled foot rested upon the head of an enormous tiger that lay motionless before the throne.

She uttered a low, brief word of command, and the great beast rose, stretched himself lazily, and then stepped noiselessly forth.

A shudder ran through the throng. I saw the face blanch of the man who had spoken. The soft, padding footfall sounded now through the tense silence as the tiger drew slowly near.

At length when about ten paces from the warrior, the beast paused. The victim tried to speak, but no words came. His fixed distended eyes were on the lithe form before him. The great cat was crouched to spring, its tail waving gently, its tawny head raised.

Lah’s voice broke the silence, caressingly, once more.

The creature bounded lightly through the air. The next instant the warrior lay prone on the marble floor, a swift, wide-spreading pool of blood speaking dumbly yet to heaven, of the doom that had fallen. The Queen turned to Agno.

“Behold,” she said, “your answer.”

With a graceful gesture she stopped the rising murmur of the multitude, and again her wonderful voice changed. It hid not the majesty of the speaker; no, truly, it hinted at power to enforce the words, but it was sweet, sweet and persuasive, over and above anything that I have ever heard.

“O my people!” thus spoke the Queen. “When, before to-night, has the highest in the land received an order of him who standeth next unto the throne? When before this hour has the chief servant of the Snake set a limit to the will of her who calls herself, and truly, the Snake’s Bride? Have I not borne the embrace of the holy one, the python? In the dread hour in the pit itself has not the marriage rite been held, and for this?

“Turn, O my people, ere it be too late! The fate of yonder man,” and she pointed to the loose-limbed, weltering form upon the pavement, “the fate of such as he is naught to the vengeance that shall surely fall on him who sets his neck stiffly against the will of her, the best beloved of Hed. Aye! of the highest! I have said it. Look you to it.

“I am Lah, the Queen, and the just gods have given unto the hollow of my hand all power. As for these,” and she turned her beautiful face an instant towards us, “rest quietly. The defamers of the Serpent may not hope for mercy. Nevertheless, in mine own time, and after mine own choosing, shall they pay the penalty.

“Guards, lead the prisoners behind the veil!” She turned smiling to the High Priest.

“More prudence would better befit thy white hairs, most pious Agno,” she said, and the clash of cymbals answering to her nod drowned the bitter answer that writhed upon his lips, and proved that the Queen was, after all, but yet a woman, and so holding fast to the sex’s dear privilege of the final word.

Obedient to Lah’s command, six stalwart negro warriors, gorgeous in loin cloths of scarlet and gold, advanced, and laying hands upon us, hurried us, Lestrade and me, through the gaping multitude, on past the silver screen, by the Queen’s glittering throne, the host of slave girls, the musicians, the courtiers, onward still, until we reached a shimmering network of silk and steel that draped securely an entrance at the back.

With averted eyes the guards drew aside this heavy veil, and we passed within, the plaudits of the fickle throng still ringing in our ears.

Chapter V
Astolba’s Errand

Lestrade and I looked about us. The face of Lah was still so potently present in my friend’s memory that he seemed hardly conscious of the aspect of this new prison. I am, however, of a colder nature, and I scanned with eager gaze the inner hall in which we found ourselves. The guards had halted without the veil that screened from the profane this entrance to the palace of the Queen.

We stood, therefore, quite alone, in a large recess, arched and windowless and tiled with bricks painted in bright colors that showed, I judged, a kind of sacred pictured story. Hanging lamps in red, green, and blue, curiously wrought and giving forth a sweet heavy perfume, depended from the roof above our heads. Another curtain, also formed of tiny rings of silk and steel, screened the further end of this strange anteroom.

I plucked Gaston by the arm, for he was still in a day-dream, and together we walked along, till I, stretching forth my hand, parted the heavy woven folds before us. A massive door of some dark metal that looked like bronze now barred the way, but only for an instant. Invisible hands touched some hidden spring, and again we entered. This time the chamber in which we found ourselves was far richer than the one which we had left, and to which we might not return, since the door had locked into place behind us. Here the floor was of sandalwood, and covered with a rug so thick that our feet sank deep as though we walked on moss, while fair flowers woven in soft hues, still further cheated the eye that gazed upon their beauty. The walls were hung with silken tapestries; four slaves marvellously carved in ebony and clothed in rich garments, stood each in his respective corner, and these held high in one hand a scented torch, while the other grasped a curved and glittering knife. There were couches also here and there, covered with rare stuffs, and a shimmering gauze enriched with silver and turquois veiled here, as before, the further end of the apartment.

Lestrade’s interest quickened. His swift gesture tore aside the curtain and revealed a gate of beaten gold.

My blood leaped at the sight. I put forth my hand and shook the massive bars about which twined garlands of yellow, yellow flowers. My clumsy fingers touched the delicate wreaths of roses and of leaves. They did not melt away before my eyes; not a petal, not a spray so much as trembled. It was all gold; solid, beautiful, wonderful gold.

I grasped Lestrade by the shoulder, but with an impatience new to him he shook off the touch and pointed to the gate. It was slowly opening; we passed, and it closed behind us. I saw pillars of ivory, the sheen of precious metal, the pink of tulip-wood walls inlaid with silver. I saw tiger skins upon the floor, and stuffed leopards bent to spring; I saw their jewelled eyes and claws of gold. Strange, sweet music floated through the air. I heard the tinkle of distant fountains. Then the blaze of light from the great star above ceased. The darkness of the pit wrapped us round, the thick hiss of a serpent pierced the night. I heard the rustle of garments and struck out valiantly.

There came a mocking peal of feminine laughter, then strong hands seized us from behind, and despite our struggles we were bound hand and foot and carried on and on through a tangled labyrinth, now to the right, now to the left, now doubling on our tracks, and all in the midnight darkness, with the indescribable noises in our ears of a silent attending multitude.

I thought the bearers walked along ground that gradually sloped downward. Afterward I found that I was right. At the moment there was so much else to think of that the true force of this fact did not strike me. I say this that you may note that I am a just man, as well as a modest, that I do not lay claim to a foresight or an understanding of the inwardness of things, over and above that which nature has bestowed on me. This I may say has so far been sufficient for the purpose, as indeed the event has in time borne out. And without former knowledge who could have guessed the hidden secrets of Lah’s palace, or the mysteries that gathered thick about the dwelling-place of Edba and of Hed.

I heard Lestrade whistling softly there in the darkness not ten paces away. The sound heartened me wonderfully. We were still together, and what might befall lost half its terror.

All at once our bearers halted. I was gently laid upon a couch. My bonds were loosened, and as I sprang to my feet a light flashed from above, and I found myself standing beside Lestrade. The throng had melted away as if by magic. A woman closely veiled and draped in a white garment, alone stood waiting. Ere I could speak she turned with a quick gesture and threw back the filmy covering that hid her face. Lestrade and I uttered a smothered exclamation, for the woman’s skin was fairer than our own, and as she spoke, we knew on the instant that the tale of Sagamoso was true, and that the daughter of the murdered explorer stood before us. The girl was trembling so that Gaston made haste to lead her to a couch, while I stood stolid, my eyes fixed upon her eyes, luminous and wide with mingled fear and joy, while I waited in breathless silence for her words.

“How I have suffered,” she said half to herself, and the English was sweet to me, and the sound of her voice yet sweeter. She looked about her as a frightened fawn looks when the dogs are upon her. “These walls have ears,” she said under her breath. “This horrible place is full of treachery. Still I must ask you, for I cannot wait. You are of my people. Have you come to save me?”

Lestrade took her hand in his and kissed it, and his voice was the voice of a mother soothing a tired child.

“It is our sacred purpose, and naught shall turn us,” he said.

“That and vengeance on your enemies,” I added.

“Hush!” she answered, with a warning gesture. She listened in silence for a moment, and then the folds of her veil once more hid her face, but I had seen the pretty color come back to her lips and cheek, and her smile of trust and gratitude had stirred me mightily. “I am Astolba, handmaid of Lah, the Queen,” she continued aloud, and with a subtile change of manner that Lestrade was quick to note and imitate.

As for me, I stood still gazing dumbly, yet drinking in the music of her speech.

“She, the beloved of the gods, has sent me hither, that you may learn from me the language of the people of the Walled City; that their customs and rites may be made known to you. So that, strangers though you be, you may yet stand within the inner circle,—if so the Queen will,—and bring knowledge and power to the followers of Edba and of Hed.”

She looked with pleading towards me, for with a woman’s quick instinct she saw that Gaston had no scruples at learning aught, let it but come from her fair lips.

For me, I have, thank the Lord, small stomach for heathen follies; little patience with holy serpents and sacred apes, with bloody chanting and such like deviltries.

Nevertheless, when Astolba added softly, “It is the Queen’s order; will you learn of me?” I nodded, and she, I think, was puzzled and not best pleased, not knowing for certain which argument had changed the habit of my mind. And that is, let me tell you, an excellent manner to deal with women.

Astolba, therefore,—for so she was called, and the word meaning “white dove” did indeed singularly befit her,—Astolba having told her errand and won consent, began at once her mission.

I cannot fit with nicety the meaning of all she told into the jewelled setting of her speech. I am, as I have said, a plain man, and can but repeat the substance of the strange lesson begun that hour, and continued in due order during many succeeding days, until the language and customs of this strange people became at length known to us.

For Astolba herself, her own story was simple. We already knew much from the dying words of the fugitive priest. Her future fate was to her, as to us, a sealed book, and we forbore to let her see the red light cast upon it by those same last words.

The maid had so far been treated well, with a kind of contemptuous pity, by her beautiful mistress. Lah was curious of all that pertained to Saxon life and usage. She had even learned the language; she had questioned her white prisoner closely about the arts, the doings, the manufactures of the stranger. She had copied in some measure, but secretly, such things as pleased her fancy, or seemed like to extend her power.

“She is wonderful,” said Astolba, “but she is terrible. The Queen’s nature is like a bottomless well. You drop a pebble into its depths, and you listen and listen, and you hear no sound. It is falling, falling, falling. And so with Lah. No one can judge that hidden depth. She is all in one. Childlike, lovable, gentle, then fierce, treacherous, and oh so unspeakably cruel!”

The girl covered her face with her hands as if to shut out some horrid sight.

“You could not bear, strong men that you are, the things that I have seen,” she said in a whisper. Then she went on more calmly, to speak of other matters, but the vision of the icy fear that had pierced her was by me not soon forgotten.

As I look back on it all now, I see how, little by little, we learned the belief of the people of the Walled City.

For better comprehension of this tale, I will now briefly set forth the substance of their strange faith.

Lah and her subjects worshipped chiefly, and with dread, two singular powers: Hed, the serpent god whose spirit dwelt in the body of a monstrous python, called the holy Snake; and Edba, the moon goddess.

Hed gave victory in battle, revenge over enemies, success in various undertakings. Edba gave the crops and increase to the people.

Hed was worshipped by bloody sacrifices; Edba, by offerings of fruit and flowers, save on the great yearly feast, when she, too, demanded that a human life be poured forth before her altar.

Hed was the god of fear; Edba, the goddess of love. Once every twelve months, a maiden, fair and without blemish, became the bride of the Snake. That is, with songs and rejoicing, the rose-crowned victim was thrown to the python, and crushed to death in the reptile’s horrid folds, in the presence of a frenzied multitude.

Two years before our coming a King had ruled with a heavy hand the people of the Walled City. Unlike his royal predecessors, he had made war upon the neighboring country, and he had brought home vast treasure and many slaves, so that the High Priest dared not lift his voice against the practice. To leave the City on any pretext whatsoever was a thing forbidden alike to the Ruler and his people; a thing unheard of for generations, and a thing accursed by Hed. But the King brooked no restraint; the masses were drunk with their new-found liberty, and Agno’s maledictions were looked upon as little more than the impotent murmurings of a feeble old man.

Then one day the King returned with a captive, none knew from whence, a woman who despised the customs of the people, the beauty of whose unveiled face made glad like wine the heart of him who beheld it. Her, the King married; one month from that day he died, suddenly, at a banquet, and Lah, upheld by the High Priest, had seized the sceptre.

No woman had ever sat before upon the throne, and the people and army rebelled, the priests alone remaining faithful to their new sovereign.

But Lah faced the rising storm with calm authority. She appealed to an ancient test almost forgotten. She became, by her own wish, the bride of the Snake, and before the very eyes of her wondering subjects, she came forth from the pit, not only alive, but unhurt.

From that moment she became a sacred person. The chief ringleaders of the revolt were cruelly butchered by their quondam followers, and Lah was Queen indeed.

So much for what had taken place before our coming. That there was no longer peace between the High Priest and his sovereign, I already guessed, but I did not know then how near the crisis was, or how the scale of power trembled in the balance.

This, for Astolba’s errand. I must now turn to the events that thickly followed on her coming.

Chapter VI
The Cup of the Beast

On the noonday that followed Astolba’s last visit, our usual meal was not brought to us, but on the hour, a turbaned slave appeared, bearing rich vestments of the barbarous kind worn by the attendants at the Queen’s court. These he flung upon the floor of our gilded cage, and by signs, showed us that we were to divest ourselves of our Christian garments and don instead these heathenish trappings.

Lestrade, glad of any divertisement—for of a surety our enforced leisure had become a burden to him—Lestrade, I say, bent himself with something of a child’s glee to this mummery, and I must needs confess showed in the issue bravely enough. But I, with some stubbornness to the messenger’s mute importunities, shook my head, and having now achieved some knowledge of the language, I put to the fellow a few questions as to our state, and the term of our imprisonment.

But the slave was silent; and at length, wearied by his sullenness, I seized him by the shoulder, and (it shames me) with no gentle grip, for I was bent on forcing something more reasonable from between his thick lips than the senseless gibbering with which he had so far replied to my inquiries.

The fellow’s eyes rolled with fear, and opening his mouth, he pointed inward, dumbly, and I saw that his tongue had been shorn off close to the roots. The sight filled me with such mingled feelings of rage at the hellish cruelty that had been practised, and of pity for the helpless victim, that when the poor creature took from beneath his cloak two covered silver goblets, and with mute entreaties offered one to me and one to Gaston, I followed without a thought my friend’s example, and drank off at a draught the spiced wine that the cup contained.

Almost on the instant a mist arose before my eyes, and I saw, as in a dream, Lestrade fall on the marble floor of our prison house. The slave vanished as he had come; sweet music from a distance sounded in my ears, a great joy took hold upon my heart. I looked up and beheld the unveiled countenance of Lah, shining with its wondrous beauty, like a star, above me. I stretched forth my arms to draw the vision nearer, and—I knew no more.

How many hours passed while I lay close wrapped in that dreamless sleep, I cannot say. After a time, long or short as it may be, I awoke, and, piece by piece, what had befallen came back to my mind. I was still calm, still strangely happy, and loth to break the charmed spell that held my being. But after a little my manhood struggled in the toils. I opened my eyes, and saw, without wholly understanding all as yet, that I was in another chamber, hewn, it appeared, out of solid rock, yet softly draped with silken tapestries. I lay upon a couch covered with the skin of a lion. I idly noted that the claws were of gold and the eyes of emerald. I saw that I was dressed in the garments that the slave had brought; but the sight awoke no anger. I glanced about me, and I beheld Lestrade, sitting motionless, with bowed head, in a distant corner of the room. I spoke to him, but he did not reply. Then I roused me, and again I spoke, and still silence. At this, the fumes of that accursed potion left my brain, and springing to my feet, I went swiftly to him, and again spoke; and this time Gaston raised his head, and his eyes encountered mine. His eyes! Not his, but those of an unthinking beast, with no show of meaning, of friendliness, aye, of barest humanity, in their depths. With trembling hand I touched him upon the shoulder.

“Gaston!” I cried. “Gaston! what has happened? Speak! do you not know me?”

Then, as he answered not, I shook him roughly, in my terror and amazement, and he turned,—turned like a savage dog that is disturbed,—and snapped at my hand. His lips drew back over his white teeth in an angry snarl, a beast-like snarl, and I, sick with horror, let go my hold, and there, with the same smile of cruel, conscious sovereignty, by my side stood Lah.

Then the rage that was in me broke loose; and forgetting everything, her womanhood with her power, I saw only the foul wrong that had been wrought upon the body of my friend, and I seized her soft arm in my hand, and gripped it savagely.

“Cursed sorceress,” I cried, “this is your work!”

For an instant the Queen’s eyes blazed, and had I not been beside myself with rage, I needs must have blanched before them; then a look of wonderful sweetness came into her face, and she said, with simple dignity, in the language of her people:—

“I will cure your friend.”

I let go my hold and such a flood of mingled feeling overbore me, that I knew not what to do or say, or what construction to put upon the matter.

My usual slow thinking but unmoved self was far from me. I was on fire with new thoughts, new feelings, that I knew not how to meet.

I turned from my friend, crouched in bestial fear in the royal presence, to the red marks that I had just brought in my blind fury to the satin surface of the Queen’s beautiful bare arm.

Then, with an effort, I shook off the spell of Lah’s wonderful presence. I felt myself once more my own master. My eyes looked into her eyes, and I did not flinch.

“Is this your work?” I asked.