HOW WE ESCAPED FROM HARMAC
As finally arranged this was the order of our march: First went an Abati
guide who was said to be conversant with every inch of the way. Then
came Orme and Sergeant Quick, conducting the camels that were loaded
with the explosives. I followed in order to keep an eye upon these
precious beasts and those in charge of them. Next marched some more
camels, carrying our baggage, provisions, and sundries, and finally in
the rear were the Professor and Shadrach with two Abati.
Shadrach, I should explain, had selected this situation for the reason,
as he said, that if he went first, after what had passed, any mistake
or untoward occurrence might be set down to his malice, whereas, if he
were behind, he could not be thus slandered. On hearing this, Higgs,
who is a generous soul, insisted upon showing his confidence in the
virtue of Shadrach by accompanying him as a rearguard. So violently did
he insist, and so flattered did Shadrach seem to be by this mark of
faith, that Orme, who, I should say, if I have not already done so, was
in sole command of the party now that hostilities were in the air,
consented to the plan, if with evident reluctance.
As I know, his own view was that it would be best for us four Englishmen
to remain together, although, if we did so, whatever position we chose,
it would be impossible for us in that darkness to keep touch with the
line of camels and their loads, which were almost as important to us as
our lives. At least, having made up our minds to deliver them in Mur,
we thought that they were important, perhaps because it is the fashion
of the Anglo-Saxon race to put even a self-created idea of duty before
personal safety or convenience.
Rightly or wrongly, so things were settled, for in such troublous
conditions one can only do what seems best at the moment. Criticism
subsequent to the event is always easy, as many an unlucky commander
has found out when the issue went awry, but in emergency one must
decide on something.
The sun set, the darkness fell, and it began to rain and blow. We
started quite unobserved, so far as we could tell, and, travelling
downward from the overgrown, ruined town, gained the old road, and in
complete silence, for the feet of camels make no noise, passed along it
toward the lights of Harmac, which now and again, when the storm-clouds
lifted, we saw glimmering in front of us and somewhat to our left.
In all my long wanderings I cannot remember a more exciting or a more
disagreeable journey. The blackness, relieved only from time to time by
distant lightnings, was that of the plagues of Egypt; the driving rain
worked through the openings of our camel-hair cloaks and the
waterproofs we wore underneath them, and wet us through. The cold, damp
wind chilled us to the bone, enervated as we were with the heat of the
desert. But these discomforts, and they were serious enough, we forgot
in the tremendous issue of the enterprise. Should we win through to
Mur? Or, as a crown to our many labours and sufferings, should we
perish presently on the road? That was the question; as I can assure the
reader, one that we found very urgent and interesting.
Three hours had gone by. Now we were opposite to the lights of Harmac,
also to other lights that shone up a valley in the mountain to our
right. As yet everything was well; for this we knew by the words
whispered up and down the line.
Then of a sudden, in front of us a light flashed, although as yet it was
a long way off. Next came another whispered message of “Halt!” So
we halted, and presently one of the front guides crept back, informing
us that a body of Fung cavalry had appeared upon the road ahead. We
took counsel. Shadrach arrived from the rear, and said that if we
waited awhile they might go away, as he thought that their presence
must be accidental and connected with the great festival. He implored
us to be quite silent. Accordingly, not knowing what to do, we waited.
Now I think I have forgotten to say that the dog Pharaoh, to prevent
accidents, occupied a big basket; this basket, in which he often rode
when tired, being fixed upon one side of Orme’s camel. Here he lay
peaceably enough until, in an unlucky moment, Shadrach left me to go
forward to talk to the Captain, whereon, smelling his enemy, Pharaoh
burst out into furious baying. After that everything was confusion.
Shadrach darted back toward the rear. The light ahead began to move
quickly, advancing toward us. The front camels left the road, as I
presume, following their leader according to the custom of these beasts
when marching in line.
Presently, I know not how, Orme, Quick, and myself found ourselves
together in the darkness; at the time we thought Higgs was with us
also, but in this we were mistaken. We heard shoutings and strange
voices speaking a language that we could not understand. By the sudden
glare of a flash of lightning, for the thunderstorm was now travelling
over us, we saw several things. One of these was the Professor’s
riding-dromedary, which could not be mistaken because of its pure white
colour and queer method of holding its head to one side, passing within
ten yards, between us and the road, having a man upon its back who
evidently was not the Professor. Then it was that we discovered his
absence and feared the worst.
“A Fung has got his camel,” I said.
“No,” answered Quick; “Shadrach has got it. I saw his ugly
mug against the light.”
Another vision was that of what appeared to be our baggage camels moving
swiftly away from us, but off the road which was occupied by a body of
horsemen in white robes. Orme issued a brief order to the effect that
we were to follow the camels with which the Professor might be. We
started to obey, but before we had covered twenty yards of the
cornfield or whatever it was in which we were standing, heard voices
ahead that were not those of Abati. Evidently the flash which showed
the Fung to us had done them a like service, and they were now
advancing to kill or capture us.
There was only one thing to do—turn and fly—and this we did,
heading whither we knew not, but managing to keep touch of each other.
About a quarter of an hour later, just as we were entering a grove of
palms or other trees which hid everything in front of us, the lightning
blazed again, though much more faintly, for by this time the storm had
passed over the Mountains of Mur, leaving heavy rain behind it. By the
flash I, who was riding last and, as it chanced, looking back over my
shoulder, saw that the Fung horsemen were not fifty yards behind, and
hunting for us everywhere, their line being extended over a long front.
I was, however, sure that they had not yet caught sight of us in the
dense shadow of the trees.
“Get on,” I said to the others; “they will be here
presently,” and heard Quick add:
“Give your camel his head, Captain; he can see in the dark, and
perhaps will take us back to the road.”
Orme acted on this suggestion, which, as the blackness round us was
pitchy, seemed a good one. At any rate it answered, for off we went at
a fair pace, the three camels marching in line, first over soft ground
and afterwards on a road. Presently I thought that the rain had
stopped, since for a few seconds none fell on us, but concluded from
the echo of the camels’ feet and its recommencement that we had
passed under some archway. On we went, and at length even through the
gloom and rain I saw objects that looked like houses, though if so
there were no lights in them, perhaps because the night drew toward
morning. A dreadful idea struck me: we might be in Harmac! I passed it
up for what it was worth.
“Very likely,” whispered Orme back. “Perhaps these camels
were bred here, and are looking for their stables. Well, there is only
one thing to do—go on.”
So we went on for a long while, only interfered with by the occasional
attentions of some barking dog. Luckily of these Pharaoh, in his basket,
took no heed, probably because it was his habit if another dog barked
at him to pretend complete indifference until it came so near that he
could spring and fight, or kill it. At length we appeared to pass under
another archway, after which, a hundred and fifty yards or so further
on, the camels came to a sudden stop. Quick dismounted, and presently I
heard him say:
“Doors. Can feel the brasswork on them. Tower above, I think, and wall
on either side. Seem to be in a trap. Best stop here till light comes.
Nothing else to be done.”
Accordingly, we stopped, and, having tied the camels to each other to
prevent their straying, took shelter from the rain under the tower or
whatever it might be. To pass away the time and keep life in us, for we
were almost frozen with the wet and cold, we ate some tinned food and
biscuits that we carried in our saddle-bags, and drank a dram of brandy
from Quick’s flask. This warmed us a little, though I do not think
that a bottleful would have raised our spirits. Higgs, whom we all
loved, was gone, dead, probably, by that time; the Abati had lost or
deserted us, and we three white men appeared to have wandered into a
savage stronghold, where, as soon as we were seen, we should be trapped
like birds in a net, and butchered at our captor’s will. Certainly the
position was not cheerful.
Overwhelmed with physical and mental misery, I began to doze; Orme grew
silent, and the Sergeant, having remarked that there was no need to
bother, since what must be must be, consoled himself in a corner by
humming over and over again the verse of the hymn which begins:
“There is a blessed home beyond this land of woe,
Where trials never come nor tears of sorrow flow.”
Fortunately for us, shortly before dawn the “tears of sorrow” as
represented by the rain ceased to flow. The sky cleared, showing the
stars; suddenly the vault of heaven was suffused with a wonderful and
pearly light, although on the earth the mist remained so thick that we
could see nothing. Then above this sea of mist rose the great ball of
the sun, but still we could see nothing that was more than a few yards
away from us.
“There is a blessed home beyond this land of woe”
droned Quick beneath his breath for about the fiftieth time, since,
apparently, he knew no other hymn which he considered suitable to our
circumstances, then ejaculated suddenly:
“Hullo! here’s a stair. With your leave I’ll go up it,
Captain,” and he did.
A minute later we heard his voice calling us softly:
“Come here, gentlemen,” he said, “and see something worth
looking at.”
So we scrambled up the steps, and, as I rather expected, found ourselves
upon the top of one of two towers set above an archway, which towers
were part of a great protective work outside the southern gates of a
city that could be none other than Harmac. Soaring above the mist rose
the mighty cliffs of Mur that, almost exactly opposite to us, were
pierced by a deep valley.
Into this valley the sunlight poured, revealing a wondrous and
awe-inspiring object of which the base was surrounded by billowy
vapours, a huge, couchant animal fashioned of black stone, with a head
carved to the likeness of that of a lion, and crowned with the
_uraeus_, the asp-crested symbol of majesty in old Egypt. How big the
creature might be it was impossible to say at that distance, for we
were quite a mile away from it; but it was evident that no other
monolithic monument that we had ever seen or heard of could approach its
colossal dimensions.
Compared to this tremendous effigy indeed, the boasted Sphinx of Gizeh
seemed but a toy. It was no less than a small mountain of rock shaped
by the genius and patient labour of some departed race of men to the
form of a lion-headed monster. Its majesty and awfulness set thus above
the rolling mists in the red light of the morning, reflected on it from
the towering precipices beyond, were literally indescribable; even in
our miserable state, they oppressed and overcame us, so that for awhile
we were silent. Then we spoke, each after his own manner:
“The idol of the Fung!” said I. “No wonder that savages
should take it for a god.”
“The greatest monolith in all the world,” muttered Orme, “and
Higgs is dead. Oh! if only he had lived to see it, he would have gone
happy. I wish it had been I who was taken; I wish it had been I!” and
he wrung his hands, for it is the nature of Oliver Orme always to think
of others before himself.
“That’s what we have come to blow up,” soliloquized Quick.
“Well, those ‘azure stinging-bees,’ or whatever they call the
stuff (he meant azo-imides) are pretty active, but it will take a lot of
stirring if ever we get there. Seems a pity, too, for the old pussy is
handsome in his way.”
“Come down,” said Orme. “We must find out where we are;
perhaps we can escape in the mist.”
“One moment,” I answered. “Do you see that?” and I
pointed to a needle-like rock that pierced the fog about a mile to the
south of the idol valley, and say two miles from where we were.
“That’s the White Rock; it isn’t white really, but the vultures
roost on it and make it look so. I have never seen it before, for I
passed it in the night, but I know that it marks the beginning of the
cleft which runs up to Mur; you remember, Shadrach told us so. Well, if
we can get to that White Rock we have a chance of life.”
Orme studied it hurriedly and repeated, “Come down; we may be seen up
here.”
We descended and began our investigations in feverish haste. This was
the sum of them: In the arch under the tower were set two great doors
covered with plates of copper or bronze beaten into curious shapes to
represent animals and men, and apparently very ancient. These huge
doors had grilles in them through which their defenders could peep out
or shoot arrows. What seemed more important to us, however, was that
they lacked locks, being secured only by thick bronze bolts and bars
such as we could undo.
“Let’s clear out before the mist lifts,” said Orme.
“With luck we may get to the pass.”
We assented, and I ran to the camels that lay resting just outside the
arch. Before I reached them, however, Quick called me back.
“Look through there, Doctor,” he said, pointing to one of the
peep-holes.
I did so, and in the dense mist saw a body of horsemen advancing toward
the door.
They must have seen us on the top of the wall. “Fools that we were to
go there!” exclaimed Orme.
Next instant he started back, not a second too soon, for through the
hole where his face had been, flashed a spear which struck the ground
beyond the archway. Also we heard other spears rattle upon the bronze
plates of the doors.
“No luck!” said Orme; “that’s all up, they mean to
break in. Now I think we had better play a bold game. Got your rifles,
Sergeant and Doctor? Yes? Then choose your loopholes, aim, and empty
the magazines into them. Don’t waste a shot. For heaven’s sake
don’t waste a shot. Now—one—two—three, fire!”
Fire we did into the dense mass of men who had dismounted and were
running up to the doors to burst them open. At that distance we could
scarcely miss and the magazines of the repeating rifles held five shots
apiece. As the smoke cleared away I counted quite half-a-dozen Fung
down, while some others were staggering off, wounded. Also several of
the men and horses beyond were struck by the bullets which had passed
through the bodies of the fallen.
The effect of this murderous discharge was instantaneous and remarkable.
Brave though the Fung might be, they were quite unaccustomed to
magazine rifles. Living as they did perfectly isolated and surrounded
by a great river, even if they had heard of such things and
occasionally seen an old gaspipe musket that reached them in the course
of trade, of modern guns and their terrible power they knew nothing.
Small blame to them, therefore, if their courage evaporated in face of
a form of sudden death which to them must have been almost magical. At
any rate they fled incontinently, leaving their dead and wounded on the
ground.
Now again we thought of flight, which perhaps would have proved our
wisest course, but hesitated because we could not believe that the Fung
had left the road clear, or done more than retreat a little to wait for
us. While we lost time thus the mist thinned a great deal, so much
indeed that we could see our exact position. In front of us, towards
the city side, lay a wide open space, whereof the walls ended against
those of Harmac itself, to which they formed a kind of vestibule or
antechamber set there to protect this gateway of the town through which
we had ridden in the darkness, not knowing whither we went.
“Those inner doors are open,” said Orme, nodding his head toward
the great portals upon the farther side of the square. “Let’s go
see if we can shut them. Otherwise we shan’t hold this place long.”
So we ran across to the further doors that were similar to those through
which we had just fired, only larger, and as we met nobody to interfere
with our efforts, found that the united strength of the three of us was
just, only just, sufficient to turn first one and then the other of
them upon its hinges and work the various bolts and bars into their
respective places. Two men could never have done the job, but being
three and fairly desperate we managed it. Then we retreated to our
archway and, as nothing happened, took the opportunity to eat and drink
a few mouthfuls, Quick remarking sagely that we might as well die upon
full as upon empty stomachs.
When we had crossed the square the fog was thinning rapidly, but as the
sun rose, sucking the vapours from the rain-soaked earth, it thickened
again for awhile.
“Sergeant,” said Orme presently, “these black men are bound
to attack us soon. Now is the time to lay a mine while they can’t see
what we are after.”
“I was just thinking the same thing, Captain; the sooner the
better,” replied Quick. “Perhaps the Doctor will keep a watch here
over the camels, and if he sees any one stick up his head above the
wall, he might bid him good-morning. We know he is a nice shot, is the
Doctor,” and he tapped my rifle.
I nodded and the two of them set out laden with wires and the packages
that looked like tobacco tins, heading for a stone erection in the
centre of the square which resembled an altar, but was, I believe, a
rostrum whence the native auctioneers sold slaves and other
merchandise. What they did there exactly, I am sure I do not know;
indeed, I was too much occupied in keeping a watch upon the walls
whereof I could clearly see the crest above the mist, to pay much
attention to their proceedings.
Presently my vigilance was rewarded, for over the great gateway
opposite, at a distance of about a hundred and fifty paces from me,
appeared some kind of a chieftain clad in white robes and wearing a
very fine turban or coloured head-dress, who paraded up and down,
waving a spear defiantly and uttering loud shouts.
This man I covered very carefully, lying down to do so. As Quick had
said, I am a good rifle shot, having practised that art for many years;
still, one may always miss, which, although I bore no personal grudge
against the poor fellow in the fine head-dress, on this occasion I did
not wish to do. The sudden and mysterious death of that savage would, I
felt sure, produce a great effect among his people.
At length he stopped exactly over the door and began to execute a kind
of war-dance, turning his head from time to time to yell out something
to others on the farther side of the wall. This was my opportunity. I
covered him with as much care as though I were shooting at a target,
with one bull’s eye to win. Aiming a little low in case the rifle
should throw high, very gently I pressed the trigger. The cartridge
exploded, the bullet went on its way, and the man on the wall stopped
dancing and shouting and stood quite still. Clearly he had heard the
shot or felt the wind of the ball, but was untouched.
I worked the lever jerking out the empty case, preparatory to firing
again, but on looking up saw that there was no need, for the Fung
captain was spinning round on his heels like a top. Three or four times
he whirled thus with incredible rapidity, then suddenly threw his arms
wide, and dived headlong from the wall like a bather from a plank, but
backward, and was seen no more. Only from the farther side of those
gates arose a wail of wrath and consternation.
After this no other Fung appeared upon the wall, so I turned my
attention to the spy-hole in the doors behind me, and seeing some
horsemen moving about at a distance of four or five hundred yards on a
rocky ridge where the mist did not lie, I opened fire on them and at
the second shot was fortunate enough to knock a man out of the saddle.
One of those with him, who must have been a brave fellow, instantly
jumped down, threw him, dead or living, over the horse, leaped up
behind him, and galloped away accompanied by the others, pursued by
some probably ineffective bullets that I sent after them.
Now the road to the Pass of Mur seemed to be clear, and I regretted that
Orme and Quick were not with me to attempt escape. Indeed, I meditated
fetching or calling them, when suddenly I saw them returning, burying a
wire or wires in the sand as they came, and at the same time heard a
noise of thunderous blows of which I could not mistake the meaning.
Evidently the Fung were breaking down the farther bronze doors with
some kind of battering-ram. I ran out to meet them and told my news.
“Well done,” said Orme in a quiet voice. “Now, Sergeant, just
join up those wires to the battery, and be careful to screw them in
tight. You have tested it, haven’t you? Doctor, be good enough to
unbar the gates. No, you can’t do that alone; I’ll help you
presently. Look to the camels and tighten the girths. These Fung will
have the doors down in a minute, and then there will be no time to
lose.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked as I obeyed.
“Show them some fireworks, I hope. Bring the camels into the archway
so that they can’t foul the wire with their feet. So—stand still,
you grumbling brutes! Now for these bolts. Heavens! how stiff they are.
I wonder why the Fung don’t grease them. One door will do—never
mind the other.”
Labouring furiously we got it undone and ajar. So far as we could see
there was no one in sight beyond. Scared by our bullets or for other
reasons of their own, the guard there appeared to have moved away.
“Shall we take the risk and ride for it?” I suggested.
“No,” answered Orme. “If we do, even supposing there are no
Fung waiting beyond the rise, those inside the town will soon catch us
on their swift horses. We must scare them before we bolt, and then
those that are left of them may let us alone. Now listen to me. When I
give the word, you two take the camels outside and make them kneel
about fifty yards away, not nearer, for I don’t know the effective
range of these new explosives; it may be greater than I think. I shall
wait until the Fung are well over the mine and then fire it, after
which I hope to join you. If I don’t, ride as hard as you can go to
that White Rock, and if you reach Mur give my compliments to the Child
of Kings, or whatever she is called, and say that although I have been
prevented from waiting upon her, Sergeant Quick understands as much
about picrates as I do. Also get Shadrach tried and hanged if he is
guilty of Higgs’s death. Poor old Higgs! how he would have enjoyed
this.”
“Beg your pardon, Captain,” said Quick, “but I’ll stay
with you. The doctor can see to the baggage animals.”
“Will you be good enough to obey orders and fall to the rear when you
are told, Sergeant? Now, no words. It is necessary for the purposes of
this expedition that one of us two should try to keep a whole skin.”
“Then, sir,” pleaded Quick, “mayn’t I take charge of
the battery?”
“No,” he answered sternly. “Ah! the doors are down at
last,” and he pointed to a horde of Fung, mounted and on foot, who
poured through the gateway where they had stood, shouting after their
fashion, and went on: “Now then, pick out the captains and pepper
away. I want to keep them back a bit, so that they come on in a crowd,
not scattered.”
We took up our repeating rifles and did as Orme told us, and so dense
was the mass of humanity opposite that if we missed one man, we hit
another, killing or wounding a number of them. The result of the loss
of several of their leaders, to say nothing of meaner folk, was just
what Orme had foreseen. The Fung soldiers, instead of rushing on
independently, spread to right and left, until the whole farther side
of the square filled up with thousands of them, a veritable sea of men,
at which we pelted bullets as boys hurl stones at a wave.
At length the pressure of those behind thrust onward those in front, and
the whole fierce, tumultuous mob began to flow forward across the
square, a multitude bent on the destruction of three white men, armed
with these new and terrible weapons. It was a very strange and
thrilling sight; never have I seen its like.
“Now,” said Orme, “stop firing and do as I bid you. Kneel the
camels fifty yards outside the wall, not less, and wait till you know
the end. If we shouldn’t meet again, well, good-bye and good luck.”
So we went, Quick literally weeping with shame and rage.
“Good Lord!” he exclaimed, “good Lord! to think that, after
four campaigns, Samuel Quick, Sergeant of Engineers, with five medals,
should live to be sent off with the baggage like a pot-bellied
bandmaster, leaving his captain to fight about three thousand niggers
single-handed. Doctor, if he don’t come out, you do the best you can
for yourself, for I’m going back to stop with him, that’s all.
There, that’s fifty paces; down you go, you ugly beasts,” and he
bumped his camel viciously on the head with the butt of his rifle.
From where we had halted we could only see through the archway into the
space beyond. By now the square looked like a great Sunday meeting in
Hyde Park, being filled up with men of whom the first rows were already
past the altar-like rostrum in its centre.
“Why don’t he loose off them stinging-bees?” muttered Quick.
“Oh! I see his little game. Look,” and he pointed to the figure of
Orme, who had crept behind the unopened half of the door on our side of
it and was looking intently round its edge, holding the battery in his
right hand. “He wants to let them get nearer so as to make a bigger
bag. He——”
I heard no more of Quick’s remarks, for suddenly something like an
earthquake took place, and the whole sky seemed to turn to one great
flame. I saw a length of the wall of the square rush outward and
upward. I saw the shut half of the bronze-plated door skipping and
hopping playfully toward us, and in front of it the figure of a man.
Then it began to rain all sorts of things.
For instance, stones, none of which hit us, luckily, and other more
unpleasant objects. It is a strange experience to be knocked backward
by a dead fist separated from its parent body, yet on this occasion
this actually happened to me, and, what is more, the fist had a spear
in it. The camels tried to rise and bolt, but they are phlegmatic
brutes, and, as ours were tired as well, we succeeded in quieting them.
Whilst we were thus occupied somewhat automatically, for the shock had
dazed us, the figure that had been propelled before the dancing door
arrived, reeling in a drunken fashion, and through the dust and falling
_débris_ we knew it for that of Oliver Orme. His face was blackened,
his clothes were torn half off him, and blood from a scalp wound ran
down his brown hair. But in his right hand he still held the little
electric battery, and I knew at once that he had no limbs broken.
“Very successful mine,” he said thickly. “Boer melinite
shells aren’t in it with this new compound. Come on before the enemy
recover from the shock,” and he flung himself upon his camel.
In another minute we had started at a trot toward the White Rock, whilst
from the city of Harmac behind us rose a wail of fear and misery. We
gained the top of the rise on which I had shot the horseman, and, as I
expected, found that the Fung had posted a strong guard in the dip
beyond, out of reach of our bullets, in order to cut us off, should we
attempt to escape. Now, terrified by what had happened, to them a
supernatural catastrophe, they were escaping themselves, for we
perceived them galloping off to the left and right as fast as their
horses would carry them.
So for awhile we went on unmolested, though not very quickly, because of
Orme’s condition. When we had covered about half the distance between
us and the White Rock, I looked round and became aware that we were
being pursued by a body of cavalry about a hundred strong, which I
supposed had emerged from some other gate of the city.
“Flog the animals,” I shouted to Quick, “or they will catch
us after all.”
He did so, and we advanced at a shambling gallop, the horsemen gaining
on us every moment. Now I thought that all was over, especially when of
a sudden from behind the White Rock emerged a second squad of horsemen.
“Cut off!” I exclaimed.
“Suppose so, sir,” answered Quick, “but these seem a
different crowd.”
I scanned them and saw that he was right. They were a very different
crowd, for in front of them floated the Abati banner, which I could not
mistake, having studied it when I was a guest of the tribe: a curious,
triangular, green flag covered with golden Hebrew characters,
surrounding the figure of Solomon seated on a throne. Moreover,
immediately behind the banner in the midst of a bodyguard rode a
delicately shaped woman clothed in pure white. It was the Child of
Kings herself!
Two more minutes and we were among them. I halted my camel and looked
round to see that the Fung cavalry were retreating. After the events of
that morning clearly they had no stomach left for a fight with a
superior force.
The lady in white rode up to us.
“Greetings, friend,” she exclaimed to me, for she knew me again at
once. “Now, who is captain among you?”
I pointed to the shattered Orme, who sat swaying on his camel with eyes
half closed.
“Noble sir,” she said, addressing him, “if you can, tell me
what has happened. I am Maqueda of the Abati, she who is named Child of
Kings. Look at the symbol on my brow, and you will see that I speak
truth,” and, throwing back her veil, she revealed the coronet of gold
that showed her rank.