Part 14 (1/2)

With a cry of terror we sprang backwards, all except the wretched Alphonse, as paralysed with fear, and would have fallen into the fiery furnace which had been prepared for us, had not Sir Henry caught hied him back

Instantly there arose the ot back to back, Alphonse dodging frantically round our little circle in his attes We all had our revolvers on--for though we had been politely disar the palace, of course these people did not knohat a revolver was

Uaas, too, had his axe, of which no effort had been made to deprive hi Zulu war-shout echoing up the marble walls in fine defiant fashi+on

Next second, the priests, baffled of their prey, had draords fro on us like hounds upon a stag at bay I saw that, dangerous as action ht be, we --and a great tall felloas--I sent a heavy revolver ball through him, and down he fell at thefrantically, into the fiery gulf that had been prepared for us

Whether it was his cries, or the, to them, awful sound and effect of the pistol shot, or what, I know not, but the other priests halted, paralysed and disain Sorais had called out soether with the two Queens andsurrounded with a wall of armed men In a moment it was done, and still the priests hesitated, and the people hung in the balance like a herd of startled buck as it were, n one way or the other

The last yell of the burning priest had died away, the fire had finished hih Priest Agon turned, and his face was as the face of a devil 'Let the sacrifice be sacrificed,' he cried to the Queens 'Has not sacrilege enough been done by these strangers, and would ye, as Queens, throw the cloak of your majesty over evildoers? Are not the creatures sacred to the Sun dead? And is not a priest of the Sun also dead, but now slain by the ers, who come as the winds out of heaven, whence we know not, and who are e know not?

Beware, oh Queens, how ye tah altar! There is a Power that is her than your justice Beware how ye lift an iainst it! Let the sacrifice be sacrificed, oh Queens'

Then Sorais made answer in her deep quiet tones, that always seemed to me to have a suspicion of on, thou hast spoken according to thy desire, and thou hast spoken truth But it is thou ouldst lift an iainst the justice of thy God Bethink thee the midday sacrifice is accomplished; the Sun hath claimed his priest as a sacrifice'

This was a novel idea, and the people applauded it

'Bethink thee what are theseon the bosoht them here? How came they here? Ho you that they also are not servants of the Sun? Is this the hospitality that ye would have our nation show to those whos to them, to throw them to the flames? Shame on you! Shaer and show him favour To bind up his wounds, and find a pillow for his head, and food for him to eat But thy pillow is the fiery furnace, and thy food the hot savour of the flame

Shame on thee, I say!'

She paused a little to watch the effect of her speech upon the ed her tone from one of remonstrance to one of command

'Ho! place there,' she cried; 'place, I say; make way for the Queens, and those whom the Queens cover with their ”kaf” (on between his teeth

'Then will I cut a path with uards,' was the proud answer; 'ay, even in the presence of thy sanctuary, and through the bodies of thy priests'

Agon turned livid with baffled fury He glanced at the people as thoughan appeal to them, but saw clearly that their sympathies were all the other way The Zu-Vendi are a very curious and sociable people, and great as was their sense of the enor the sacred hippopotaers they had seen or heard of being consigned to a fiery furnace, thereby putting an end for ever to their chance of extracting knowledge and inforon saw this and hesitated, and then for the first time Nyleptha spoke in her soft sweet voice

'Bethink thee, Agon,' she said, 'as my sister Queen has said, these men may also be servants of the Sun For theues are tied Let the matter be adjourned till such tie Who can be conde?

When these men can plead for themselves, then it will be time to put them to the proof'

Here was a clever loophole of escape, and the vindictive old priest took it, little as he liked it

'So be it, oh Queens,' he said 'Let the ue then let them speak And I, even I, will make humble supplication at the altar lest pestilence fall on the land by cause of the sacrilege'

These words were received with aout of the teuards

But it was not till long afterwards that we learnt the exact substance of what had passed, and how hardly our lives had been wrung out of the cruel grip of the Zu-Vendi priesthood, in the face of which even the Queens were practically powerless Had it not been for their strenuous efforts to protect us we should have been slain even before we set foot in the Temple of the Sun The atte was a last artifice to attain this end when several others quite unsuspected by us had already failed

CHAPTER XV SORAIS' SONG