Part 27 (1/2)
”Well, tell me,” I urged. ”Why are you so downcast?”
”I--I have lost Liola,” he answered hoa.r.s.ely. ”Truth to tell, Scarsmere, I loved Goliba's daughter.”
”She is absolutely beautiful,” I admitted. ”No man can deny that she is handsome enough to share your royal throne.”
”Indeed she was,” he said with emotion, his chin upon his breast.
”Was!” I cried. ”Why do you speak thus?”
”Because she is dead!” he answered huskily. ”Ah! Scars, you don't know how fondly I loved her ever since the first moment we met. I loved her better than life; better than all this honour and pomp to which I have succeeded. Yet she has been taken from me, and my life in future will be devoid of that happiness I had contemplated. True I am Naba of Mo, successor to the stool whereon a line of unconquered monarchs have sat throughout a thousand years, yet all is an empty pleasure now that my well-beloved is lost to me.”
”Have you obtained definite news of her death?” I asked sympathetically.
”Yes. When we were captured in Goliba's house, she, too, was seized by the soldiers. While held powerless I saw her struggling with her captors, for they had somehow obtained knowledge of the part she had played in our conspiracy against their queen. The Naya had, it appears, ordered her guards to bring us all before her, dead or alive. With valiant courage she resented the indignity of arrest, and as a consequence she was brutally killed by those who held her prisoner.”
”How have you ascertained this?” I asked, shocked at the news, for I myself had admired Liola's extraordinary beauty.
”To-day I have had before me the three survivors of the guards who captured us, and all relate the same story. They say that a young girl, taken prisoner with us, while being dragged up the roadway towards the palace was in danger of being released by the people, and one of their comrades, remembering the Naya's orders that none of us were to escape, in the _melee_ raised his sword and plunged it into her heart.”
”The brute!” I cried. ”Is the murderer among the survivors?”
”No. All three agree that the mob, witnessing his action, set upon him and literally tore him limb from limb.”
”A fate he certainly deserved,” I said. ”But has her body been recovered?”
”A body has been found and I have seen it. But the limbs are crushed, and her face is, alas! trampled out of all recognition, although the dress answers exactly to one that Goliba says his daughter possessed, and in which I myself saw her. There is, alas! no doubt of her fate. She has been brutally murdered, and at the instigation of the Naya, who sent forth her fiendish horde to kill us.”
”I knew from the manner you exchanged glances with Liola that you loved her,” I said, after a pause, brief and painful.
”Yes,” he answered sadly. ”Surrept.i.tiously I had breathed into her ear words of affection, and had been transported to a veritable paradise of delight by the discovery that she reciprocated my love. But,” he added, harshly, ”my brief happy love-dream is now ended. I must live and work only for my people; they must be to me both sweetheart and wife. I must act as my ancestors have done, indulging them and loving them.”
Never before, even in the moments when as fellow-adventurers things looked blackest, had I seen him in so utterly dejected an att.i.tude. The light had died from his face, and he had suddenly become burdened by a monarch's responsibilities; prematurely aged by a bitter sorrow that had sapped all youthful gaiety from his buoyant heart.
With heartfelt sympathy I endeavoured to console him, but all was unavailing. That he had loved her madly was only too apparent, and it seemed equally certain that she was dead, for shortly afterwards Goliba entered, and in a voice full of emotion told us how he had been able to identify the body, and that his tardy attendance upon his royal master was due to the fact that he had been superintending her burial.
The old sage's words visibly increased Omar's burden of sorrow, for in the moonlight I saw a tear trickle down his pale cheek, glistening for an instant brighter than the jewels upon his robe. Liola had fallen victim to the inhuman brutality of the Naya's guards, and Mo had thus been deprived of a bewitchingly handsome queen.
The _denouement_ of this stirring story of a throne was indeed a tragic one; Goliba had lost his only daughter, the pride of his heart, and Omar the woman he loved.
The silence that followed was broken by a hasty footstep, and the tall dark figure of Kona approached.
”A strange fact hath transpired, O Master!” he cried breathlessly, addressing Omar.
”Speak, tell me,” the young Naba exclaimed, starting up. ”Is it of Liola that thou bearest news?”
”Alas! no. That she was murdered in the first moments of the conflict is only too certain,” he answered. ”The news I bring thee is amazing. While we were engaged in the struggle for thy throne, thine enemies, the people of Samory, entered the city and fought side by side with the military!”
”Samory's people here!” we all three cried, starting up.
”They were, but they have departed no one knows whither. Their numbers were not great, but they sacked and burned several large buildings near the city-gate and fought desperately to join their allies the troops of Mo, but were at last prevented and driven back by the people in a fierce b.l.o.o.d.y conflict that actually occurred after thou wert enthroned.”