"Wretched man!" he cried, "you have been sleeping, and now she has escaped and we are lost."
"Yes, Baas, I have been sleeping. Kill me if you wish, for I deserve it. And yet, Baas, never was I more wide–awake in my life until I drank that water. I am not wont to sleep on guard, Baas."
"Otter," said Leonard, "that wife of yours has drugged you."
"It may be so, Baas. At least the woman has gone, and, say, whither has she gone?"
"To Nam, her father," answered Leonard.
Chapter XXVII
Father and Daughter
While Leonard and Otter spoke thus in their amazement, had they but known it, a still more interesting conversation was being carried on some three hundred yards away. Its scene was a secret chamber hollowed in the thickness of the temple wall, and the dramatis personae consisted of Nam, the high priest, Soa, Juanna's servant, and Saga, wife of the Snake.
Nam was an early riser, perhaps because his conscience would not allow him to sleep, or because on this occasion he had business of importance to attend to. At any rate, on the morning in question, long before the break of dawn, he was seated in his little room alone, musing; and indeed his thoughts gave him much food for reflection. As has been said, he was a very aged man, and whatever may have been his faults, at least he was earnestly desirous of carrying on the worship of the gods according to the strict letter of the customs which had descended to him from his forefathers, and which he himself had followed all his life. In truth, from long consideration of them, their attributes, and the traditions concerning them, Nam had come to believe in the actual existence of these gods, although the belief was a qualified one and somewhat half–hearted. Or, to put it less strongly, he had never allowed his mind to entertain active doubt of the spiritual beings whose earthly worship was so powerful a factor in his own material rule and prosperity, and in that of his class. In its issues this half–faith of his had been sufficiently real to induce him to accept Otter and Juanna when they arrived mysteriously in the land.
It had been prophesied that they should arrive thus—that was a fact; and their outward appearance exactly fitted every detail of the prophecy—that was another fact; and these two facts together seemed to point to a conclusion so irresistible that, shrewd and experienced as he was, Nam, was unable to set it down to mere coincidence. Therefore in the first rush of his religious enthusiasm he had accorded a hearty welcome to the incarnations of the divinities whom for some eighty years he had worshipped as powers spiritual.
But though pious zeal had much to do with this action, as Olfan informed Juanna, it was not devoid of worldly motives. He desired the glory of being the discoverer of the gods, he desired also the consolidation of the rule which his cruelties had shaken, that must result from their advent.
All this was well enough, but he had never even dreamed that the first step of these new–born divinities would be to discard the ancient ceremonial without which his office would become a sinecure and his power a myth, and even to declare an active hostility against himself.
Were they or were they not gods? This was the question that exercised his mind. If there was truth in prophesies they should be gods. On the other hand he could discover nothing particularly divine about their persons, characters, or attributes—that is to say, nothing sufficiently divine to deceive Nam himself, whatever impression they produced upon the vulgar. Thus Juanna might be no more than a very beautiful woman white in colour, and Otter only what he knew him to be through his spies, a somewhat dissolute dwarf.
That they had no great power was also evident, seeing that he, Nam, without incurring the heavenly vengeance, had been able to abstract, and afterwards to sacrifice comfortably, the greater number of their servants. Another thing which pleaded against their celestial origin was that so far, instead of peace and prosperity blessing the land as it should have done immediately on their arrival, the present season was proving itself the worst on record, and the country was face to face with a prospect of famine in the ensuing winter.
And yet, if they were not gods, who were they? Would any human beings in their senses venture among such people as the Children of the Mist, merely to play off a huge practical joke of which the finale was likely to be so serious to themselves? The idea was preposterous, since they had nothing to gain by so doing, for Nam, it may be observed, was ignorant of the value of rubies, which to him were only emblems employed in their symbolical ceremonies. Think as he would, he could come to no definite conclusion. One thing was clear, however, that it was now very much to his interest to demonstrate their non–celestial origin, though to do so would be to stultify himself and to prove that his judgment was not infallible. Otherwise, did the "gods" succeed in establishing their power, he and his authority seemed likely to come to a sudden end in the jaws of that monster, which his order had fostered for so many generations.
Thus reflected Nam in perplexity of soul, wishing to himself the while that he had retired from his office before he was called upon to face questions so difficult and so dangerous.
"I must be patient," he muttered to himself at last; "time will show the truth, or, if the weather does not change, the people will settle the matter for me."
As it chanced he had not long to wait, for just then there was a knock upon his door.
"Enter," he said, arranging his goat–skin robe about his broad shoulders.
A priest came in bearing a torch, for there was no window to the chamber, and after him two women.
"Who is this?" said Nam, pointing to the second of the women.
"This is she who is servant to Aca, Father," answered the priest.
"How comes she here?" said Nam again. "I gave no orders that she should be taken."
"She comes of her own free will, Father, having somewhat to say to you."
"Fool, how can she speak to me when she does not know our tongue? But of her presently; take her aside and watch her. Now, Saga, your report. First, what of the weather?"
"It is grey and pitiless, father. The mist is dense and no sun can be seen."
"I thought it, because of the cold," and he drew his robe closer round him. "A few more days of this―" and he stopped, then went on. "Tell me of Jal, your lord."
"Jal is as Jal was, merry and somewhat drunken. He speaks our language very ill, yet when he was last in liquor he sang a song which told of deeds that he, and he whom they name the Deliverer, had wrought together down in the south, rescuing the goddess Aca from some who had taken her captive. At least, so I understood that song."
"Perhaps you understood it wrong," answered Nam. "Say, niece, do you still worship this god?"
"I worship the god Jal, but the man, Dweller in the Waters, I hate," she said fiercely.
"Why, how is this? But two days gone you told me that you loved him, and that there was no such god as this man, and no such man as this god."
"That was so, father, but since then he has thrust me aside, saying that I weary him, and courts a handmaid of mine own, and therefore I demand the life of that handmaiden."
Nam smiled grimly. "Perchance you demand the life of the god also?"
"Yes," she replied without hesitation, "I would see him dead if it can be brought about."
Again Nam smiled. "Truly, niece, your temper is that of my sister, your grandmother, who brought three men to sacrifice because she grew jealous of them. Well, well, these are strange times, and you may live to see your desire satisfied by the death of the god. Now, what of that woman? How comes she to be with you?"
"She was bound by the order of Aca, father, and Jal was set to watch her; but I drugged Jal, and loosing her bonds I led her down the secret way, for she desires to speak to you."