"Truly," she added, "you are a fortunate man to be so well loved, O son of Adams. To how many sons are given fathers who for fourteen long years, abandoning all else, would search for them in peril of their lives, enduring slavery and blows and starvation and the desert's heat and cold for the sake of a long-lost face? Such faithfulness is that of my forefather David for his brother Jonathan, and such love it is that passes the love of women. See that you pay it back to him, and to his memory until the last hour of your life, child of Adams."
"I will, indeed, I will, O Walda Nagasta," answered Roderick, and throwing his arms about my neck he embraced me before them all. It is not too much to say that this kiss of filial devotion more than repaid me for all I had undergone for his beloved sake. For now I knew that I had not toiled and suffered for one of no worth, as is so often the lot of true hearts in this bitter world.
Just then some of Maqueda's ladies brought food, and at her bidding we breakfasted.
"Be sparing," she said with a melancholy little laugh, "for I know not how long our store will last. Listen! I have received a last offer from my uncle Joshua. An arrow brought it--not a man; I think that no man would come lest his fate should be that of the traitor of yesterday," and she produced a slip of parchment that had been tied to the shaft of an arrow and, unfolding it, read as follows--
"O Walda Nagasta, deliver up to death the Gentiles who have bewitched you and led you to shed the blood of so many of your people, and with them the officers of the Mountaineers, and the rest shall be spared. You also I will forgive and make my wife.
Resist, and all who cling to you shall be put to the sword, and to yourself I promise nothing.
"Written by order of the Council, "Joshua, Prince of the Abati."
"What answer shall I send?" she asked, looking at us curiously.
"Upon my word," replied Orme, shrugging his shoulders, "if it were not for those faithful officers I am not sure but that you would be wise to accept the terms. We are cooped up here, but a few surrounded by thousands, who, if they dare not assault, still can starve us out, as this place is not victualled for a siege."
"You forget one of those terms, O Oliver!" she said slowly, pointing with her finger to the passage in the letter which stated that Joshua would make her his wife, "Now do you still counsel surrender?"
"How can I?" he answered, flushing, and was silent.
"Well, it does not matter what you counsel," she went on with a smile, "seeing that I have already sent my answer, also by arrow. See, here is a copy of it," and she read--
"To my rebellious People of the Abati:
"Surrender to me Joshua, my uncle, and the members of the Council who have lifted sword against me, to be dealt with according to the ancient law, and the rest of you shall go unharmed. Refuse, and I swear to you that before the night of the new moon has passed there shall be such woe in Mur as fell upon the city of David when the barbarian standards were set upon her walls. Such is the counsel that has come to me, the Child of Solomon, in the watches of the night, and I tell you that it is true. Do what you will, people of the Abati, or what you must, since your fate and ours are written. But be sure that in me and the Western lords lies your only hope.
"Walda Nagasta."
"What do you mean, O Maqueda," I asked, "about the counsel that came to you in the watches of the night?"
"What I say, O Adams," she answered calmly. "After we parted at dawn I slept heavily, and in my sleep a dark and royal woman stood before me whom I knew to be my great ancestress, the beloved of Solomon. She looked on me sadly, yet as I thought with love. Then she drew back, as it were, a curtain of thick cloud that hid the future and revealed to me the young moon riding the sky and beneath it Mur, a blackened ruin, her streets filled with dead. Yes, and she showed to me other things, though I may not tell them, which also shall come to pass, then held her hands over me as if in blessing, and was gone."
"Old Hebrew prophet business! Very interesting," I heard Higgs mutter below his breath, while in my own heart I set the dream down to excitement and want of food. In fact, only two of us were impressed, my son very much, and Oliver a little, perhaps because everything Maqueda said was gospel to him.
"Doubtless all will come to pass as you say, Walda Nagasta," said Roderick with conviction. "The day of the Abati is finished."
"Why do you say that, Son?" I asked.
"Because, Father, among the Fung people from a child I have two offices, that of Singer to the God and that of Reader of Dreams. Oh! do not laugh. I can tell you many that have come true as I read them; thus the dream of Barung which I read to mean that the head of Harmac would come to Mur, and see, there it sit," and turning, he pointed through the doorway of the tower to the grim lion-head of the idol crouched upon the top of the precipice, watching Mur as a beast of prey watches the victim upon which it is about to spring. "I know when dreams true and when dreams false; it my gift, like my voice. I know that this dream true, that all," and as he ceased speaking I saw his eyes catch Maqueda's, and a very curious glance pass between them.
As for Orme, he only said:
"You Easterns are strange people, and if you believe a thing, Maqueda, there may be something in it. But you understand that this message of yours means war to the last, a very unequal war," and he looked at the hordes of the Abati gathering on the great square.
"Yes," she answered quietly, "I understand, but however sore our straits, and however strange may seem the things that happen, have no fear of the end of that war, O my friends."
