“_My king, to the last put trust in me._”
The Sultan Nanza was holding audience in the market-square. Three
days had passed since the deposing of his cousin. Down in the great
underground temple Lebrassa lay, recovering from the effects of that
night’s work. During the time that had gone by since that evening,
parties of soldiers had scoured the forest looking for the entrance to
the passage down which Mhaki had taken Nanza, but no trace of it could
be found.
In the market-place Nanza stood, his ambition attained at last. For
now he was the Sultan of Kallu, no longer his cousin’s understudy and
deputy, and he was talking loudly of all that was going to happen now
he had the management of affairs.
A sudden stir and shouting on the outskirts of the village, took the
attention of his audience. A woman had just emerged from a forest
track, a tall, handsome negress of travel-stained appearance--a woman
once very well known in the place.
On seeing his sister the new sultan stood in open-mouthed
astonishment. Heedless of the questions and greetings showered on her,
Yoni came on and threw herself at her brother’s feet.
“Hail, Nanza,” she cried breathlessly. “You see my words of long ago
were true. The Sultan Essel had deceived us. That traitor who took me
from my country and then cast me off with mockery and scorn. Give me
vengeance. Let me see him die. Don’t tell me you have already killed
him.”
Savagely Nanza laughed.
“No traitor dies in three days,” he said. In a suspicious manner his
eyes remained on his sister. “How is it you’re here only a few days
after me?” he added.
“I followed you, purposely, hoping that if you found favor in the
sight of our cousin you would plead with him for me. A week ago I
reached a village, and there one whispered to me the news you had
brought from England, of the Sultan Essel’s treachery, of a Star that
was no Star. I ask no greater boon than to see him as he lies in
agony, that in his hour of suffering I may mock at him as he once
mocked at me. Grant this, O Nanza, my brother and Sultan, to a woman
full of hate and suffering.”
As she talked, suspicion died from his eyes, and her final sentence
brought a tigerish smile to his lips.
“Our cousin lies in the temple. A free show to all, and a warning to
those who would be traitors.”
Yoni rose to her feet.
The crowd’s gaze was upon her. They all noted her blazing, fanatical
eyes and air of savage hate. She was another who had no love for the
deposed Sultan!
This was the opinion of the priests some ten minutes later when Yoni
halted at the head of the passage leading down to the temple, in her
brother’s name, demanding admittance.
She passed through and went on to the head of the long flight of
steps.
In the darkness below a fire gleamed. The light showed a man lying on
a rude native couch. Beside him squatted a score of priests.
Lebrassa’s face was very English now. Pain had drawn his features;
they had lost their heavy look, but his eyes still showed the negro
taint that nothing could take away.
As the priests half-dozed on the throne by the royal prisoner, a wild
voice from the back made them look round sharply. A woman was bearing
down on them, with arms uplifted, wild-eyed, and face distorted with
hate and passion.
In front of the priestly barrier she paused, glaring at the man they
were guarding, shrieking out a volume of abuse. The flood of
vituperation brought Lebrassa’s attention to her.
He watched her, surprised that his treachery to Kallu should have
roused her hatred, when the breaking off of the life they had once led
together had failed to do so.
“And you too, Yoni,” he said presently, with a dreary smile.
Her voice died down to a long-drawn, hissing breath and a splutter
after speech, yet through it words reached Lebrassa that made his
scorched hands clench. What seemed to the priests nothing more than
the frantic gurgle of a woman choked with anger, reached him in the
dialect of Calabar: a language unknown to any one there except himself
and Yoni.
“My lord knows his slave is faithful,” he heard her say.
Yoni raised her voice again, raving, shouting and vituperating, down
to a gurgling, breathless splutter.
“I came to give warning, but too late. To save my lord I would give my
life,” reached Lebrassa.
She made a mad rush at the priests standing between her and the couch,
as if to get at the deposed sultan and work her will upon him. They
held her back, as she fought them wildly, their attention being
temporarily removed from the prisoner. But through her struggles
Yoni’s ears were strained for any word that might come from Lebrassa.
“More than life lies beyond the Shadow of Doomana, Yoni,” he was
saying. “You cannot save me, but save the Star, and my death will be
happy in spite of the tortures they deal out to me.”
Again her voice was raised in a storm of wild abuse, to die away in a
sob of fury and frantic gasps. Between them came protestations that
her desire was to save _him_, not the girl who had brought him to his
end.
There was a further struggle between the priests and the distraught
woman endeavoring to reach the prisoner. Sobs of fury came, and
through them Yoni spluttered:
“I am but a slave to obey. A trance will come over me. I will fall
here and none will dare touch me. Pretend to sleep, then mutter all
you wish.”
Suddenly she stopped her wild struggles. She stood, stiff and frothing
at the mouth. Then like a log she fell unconscious not two yards from
where Lebrassa lay.
The priests gazed at her with awe. In past days she had been one of
their kind, a priestess of the temple, but she had been expelled
through love of the man she now hated. They sat round, watching her
with interest, waiting until she came back to consciousness, wondering
what she would say. For they thought her trance an audience with the
gods.
On the couch the prisoner dozed uneasily, muttering whilst he slept.
A sudden howl from Yoni startled the priests. She staggered to her
feet, swaying weakly, staring unseeingly into darkness. All waited to
hear the words the gods had put into her mouth during the hour or so
she had been with them.
“I am Yoni, Keeper of the Stars. Night gives me many eyes and I see.
There is one coming whose arrival brings the darkness and the dawn.”
Long after she had vanished, swallowed up in the depths of the temple,
the priests sat and talked over the meaning of the message.
But Lebrassa lay gazing patiently into darkness. To him the words
needed no interpreting.
For Leslie’s sake he had betrayed Kallu. He had told Yoni to go to
Tuata, to bring up Captain Fletcher and a relieving force.