Part 33 (1/2)
”How you do it? How you do it, eh?” he queried in a weak voice
”Never you mind hoe did it, my friend,” I answered loftily ”What ant to knohen you are going to hand over that lady to her husband”
”Not possible,” he answered, recovering some of his tone ”First we kill you, first we kill her, she Nurse of the Child While Child there, she stop there till she die”
”See here,” broke in Ragnall ”Either you give me my wife or soer ive me my wife I will kill you noith this stick and my hands Do not move or call out if you want to live”
”Lord,” answered the old nity, ”I know you can kill me, and if you kill me, I think I say thank you who no wish to live in so ood that, since in one minute then you die too, all of you, and lady she stop here till Black Kendah king take her to wife or she too die?”
”Let us talk,” I broke in, treading warningly upon Ragnall's foot ”We have heard your Oracle and we know that you believe its words It is said that we alone can help you to conquer the Black Kendah If you will not promise e ask, ill not help you We will burn our powder and uns we have cannot speak with Jana and with Sis that I need not tell you But if you proainst Jana and Simba and teach your men to use the fifty rifles which we have here with us, and by our help you shall conquer Do you understand?”
He nodded and stroking his long beard, asked:
”What you want us promise, eh?”
”We want you to promise that after Jana is dead and the Black Kendah are driven away, you will give up to us unhar her and us safely out of your country by the roads you know, and meanwhile that you will let this lord see his wife”
”Not last, no,” replied Hart, ”that not possible That bring us all to grave Also no good, 'cause her mind empty For rest, you come to other place, sit down and eat while I talk with priests Be afraid nothing; you quite safe”
”Why should we be afraid? It is you who should be afraid, you who stole the lady and brought Bena to his death Do you not remember the words of your own Oracle, Hart?”
”Yes, I knoords, but how _you_ know them _that_ I not know,” he replied
Then he issued souard forh the crowd and along the passage to the second court of the teuard left us but re watch Presently woht us food and drink, of which Hans and I partook heartily though Ragnall, as so near to his lost wife and yet so far away, could eat but little Mingled joy because after these months of arduous search he found her yet alive, and fear lest she should again be taken from him for ever, deprived him of all appetite
While we ate, priests to the number of about a dozen, who I suppose had been su out of earshot of us between the altar and the sanctuary, entered on an earnest discussion with hi difference of opinion between the one view on the th Hart reed Then the door of the sanctuary was opened with a strange sort of key which one of the priests produced, showing a dark interior in which gleamed a white object, I suppose the statue of the Child Hart and two others entered, the door being closed behind theain and others, who listened earnestly and after renewed consultation signified assent by holding up the right hand Now one of the priests walked to where ere and, bowing, begged us to advance to the altar
This we did, and were stood in a line in front of it, Hans being set in the ed the once more opened the door of the sanctuary, took his stand a little to the right of it and addressed us, not in English but in his own language, pausing at the end of each sentence that I eza, and yellow ht-in-Darkness,” he said, ”we, the head priests of the Child, speaking on behalf of the White Kendah people with full authority so to do, have taken counsel together and of the wisdom of the Child as to the demands which you make of us Those demands are: First, that after you have killed Jana and defeated the Black Kendah we should give over to you the white lady as born in a far land to fill the office of Guardian of the Child, as is shown by the mark of the new moon upon her breast, but who, because for the second tieza Secondly, that we should conduct you and her safely out of our land to some place whence you can return to your own country Both of these things ill do, because we know from of old that if once Jana is dead we shall have no cause to fear the Black Kendah any more, since we believe that then they will leave their hoer need an Oracle to declare to us in ay Heaven will protect us from Jana and from them Or if another Oracle should become necessary to us, doubtless in due season she will be found Also we adh she was the wife of one of you But if ear this, you on your part must also swear that you will stay with us till the end of the war,your lives for us in battle You must swear further that none of you will attempt to see or to take hence that lady who is named Guardian of the Child until we hand her over to you unhars, then since no bloodyou round until you die of hunger and of thirst, or if you escape from this teht our own battle with Jana as best we may”
”And if we make these promises how are we to know that you will keep yours?” I interrupted
”Because the oath that we shall give you will be the oath of the Child that h I did not altogether like the security, obviously it was the best to be had
So very soleht hands upon the altar and ”in the presence of the Child and the name of the Child and of all the White Kendah people,” repeated after Hart a iven the substance It called down on their heads a very dreadful doom in this world and the next, should it be broken either in the spirit or the letter; the said oath, however, to be only binding if we, on our part, swore to observe their terement also in the spirit and the letter
Then they asked us to fulfil our share of the pact and very considerately drew out of hearing while we discussed the matter; Hart, the only one of the behind the sanctuary At first I had difficulties with Ragnall, asto bind hi less than our lives were involved and probably that of his wife as well, also that no other course was open to us, he gave way, to reat relief
Hans announced hi blandly that words , as afterwards we could do whatever seemed best in our own interests, whereon I read him a short moral lecture on the heinousness of perjury, which did not seem to impress him very much
This matter settled, we called back the priests and informed them of our decision Hart demanded that we should affir that it was our custo a liberal-ave way on the point So I swore first to the effect that I would fight for the White Kendah to the finish in consideration of the promises that they had made to us I added that I would not attempt either to see or to interfere with the lady here known as the Guardian of the Child until the as over or even to bring our existence to her knowledge, ending up, ”so helpevidence in a court of law
Next Ragnall with a great effort repeatedcarefully to every word and once or twice askingof some of them
Lastly Hans, who see the words afteron his own account with ”so help me the reverend Predikant, the Baas's father,” a forh it involved more explanations When pressed, indeed, he showed considerable ingenuity by pointing out to the priests that to his mind my poor father stood in exactly the same relation to the Power above us as their Oracle did to the Child He offered generously, however, to throw in the spirits of his grandfather and grandmother and some extraordinary divinity they worshi+pped, I think it was a hare, as an additional guarantee of good faith This proposal the priests accepted gravely, whereon Hans whispered into my ear in Dutch: