The People of the Mist by H. Rider Haggard (christmas read aloud .txt) 📗

others were his chosen friends. Then the door closed.

“My brethren,” said Olfan, “I have sent for you to acquaint you with a mystery and to ask you to witness a rite. The goddess Aca, who this day was hurled into the pool of the Snake, has returned to earth as a woman, and is about to become my wife,”—here the captains started—“nay, brethren, ask no questions; these things are so, it is enough. Now, priest, play your part.”

After that, for a while all seemed a dream to Juanna, a dream of which she was never able to recover any exact memory. She could recollect standing side by side with Olfan, while Nam muttered prayers and invocations over them, administering to them terrible oaths, which they took, calling upon the names of Aca and of Jâl, and swearing by the symbol of the Snake. Beyond that everything went blank. Indeed, her mind flew back to another marriage ceremony, when she stood beside Leonard in the slave camp, and the priest, Francisco, prayed over them and blessed them. It was that scene which she saw, and not the one enacting before her eyes, and with its visions were mixed up strange impersonal reflections on the irony of fate, which had brought it about that she should figure as the chief actor in two such dramas, the first of which Leonard had gone through to save her, and the second of which she must go through to save him.

At last it was done, and once more Olfan was bowing before her and kissing her hand.

“Greeting, Shepherdess. Hail! Queen of the People of the Mist,” he said, and the captains repeated his words.

Juanna awoke from her stupor. What was to be done now? she wondered. What could be done? Everything seemed lost. Then of a sudden an inspiration took her.

“It is true that I am a queen, is it not, Olfan?”

“It is true, Lady.”

“And as Queen of the People of the Mist I have power, have I not, Olfan.”

“Even to life and death,” he answered gravely; “though if you kill, you must answer to the Council of the Elders and to me. All in this land are your servants, Lady, and none dare to disobey you except on matters of religion.”

“Good,” said Juanna. Then addressing the captains in a tone of command, she added, “Seize that priest who is named Nam, and the woman with him.”

Olfan looked astonished and the captains hesitated. As for Nam, he did not hesitate, but made a bound towards the door.

“Stay awhile, Nam,” said the king, making a barrier before him with his spear; “doubtless the Queen has reasons, and you would wish to hear them. Hold them, my captains, since the Queen commands it.”

Then the three men sprang upon them. Once Nam tried to draw his knife, but failing in his attempt he submitted without further struggle. With Soa it was different. She bit and tore like a wild-cat, and Juanna saw that she was striving to reach the panel and to speak through it.

“On your lives do not suffer her to come to that door,” she said; “presently you shall know why.”

Then the brother of the king dragged Soa to the couch, and throwing her down upon it stood over her, his spear-point at her throat.

“Now, Queen,” said Olfan, “your will is done, and perhaps it may please you to explain.”

“Listen, King, and listen, you, captains,” she answered. “These liars told you that the Deliverer was dead, was it not so? He is not dead, he lies bound in yonder cell, but had I spoken a word to you, then he would have died. Olfan, do you know how my consent was won to be your wife? A shutter within that door was opened, and he, my husband, was shown to me, gagged and bound, and being held over the mouth of a hideous pit in the floor of his prison, that leads I know not whither.

“‘Consent, or he dies,’ they said, and for my love’s sake I consented. This was the plot, Olfan: to marry me to you, partly because the woman yonder, who was my nurse, did not desire my death, and partly that Nam might use me to save himself from the anger of the people. But do not think that you would have kept me long, Olfan; for this was in the plot also, that when you had served their purpose you should die by secret means, as one who knew too much.”

“It is a lie,” said Nam.

“Silence!” answered Juanna. “Let that door be opened, and you shall see if I have lied.”

“Wait awhile, Queen,” said Olfan, who appeared utterly overcome. “If I understand you right, your husband lives, and therefore you say that the words which we have spoken and the oaths that we have sworn mean nothing, for you are not my wife.”

“That is so, Olfan.”

“Then now I am minded to turn wicked and let him die,” said the king slowly, “for know this, Lady, I cannot give you up.”

Juanna grew pale as death, understanding that this man’s passions, now that once he had given them way, had passed beyond his control.

“I cannot give you up,” he repeated. “Have I not dealt well with you? Did I not say to you, ‘Consent or refuse, as it shall please you, but having once consented you must not go back upon your words’? What have I to do with the reasons that prompted them? My heart heard them and believed them. Queen, you are wed to me; those oaths that you have sworn may not be broken. It is too late; now you are mine, nor can I suffer you to pass from me back to another man, even though he was your husband before me.”

“But the Deliverer! must I then become my husband’s murderer?”

“Nay, I will protect him, and, if it may be, find means to send him from the land.”

Juanna stood silent and despairing, and at this moment Soa, lying on the couch, broke into a shrill and mocking laugh that stung her like a whip and roused her from her lethargy.

“King,” she said, “I am at your mercy, not through any wanton folly of my own, but because fate has made a sport of me. King, you have been hardly used, and, as you say, hitherto you have dealt well with me. Now I pray you let the end be as the beginning was, so that I may always think of you as the noblest among men, except one who died this day to save me. King, you say you love me; tell me then if my life hung upon a word of yours, would that word remain unspoken?

“Such was my case: I spoke the word and for one short hour I betrayed you. Will you, whose heart is great, bind me by such an oath as this, an oath wrung from me to save my darling from the power of those dogs? If this is so, then I have erred strangely in my reading of your mind, for till now I have held you to be a man who would perish ere he fell so low as to force a helpless woman to be his wife, one whose crime is that she deceived him to save her husband.”

She paused, and, clasping her hands as though in prayer, looked up into his troubled face with beseeching eyes; then, as he did not speak, she went on:

“King, I have one more word to say. You are the strongest and you can take me, but you cannot hold me, for that hour would be my last, and you but the richer by your broken honour and a dead bride.”

Olfan was about to answer when Soa, fearing lest Juanna’s pleading should prevail against his passion, broke in saying, “Be not fooled, King, by a woman’s pretty speeches, or by her idle threats that she will kill herself. She will not kill herself, I know her well, she loves her life too much; and soon, when you are wed, she will love you also, for it is the nature of us women to worship those who master us. Moreover, that man, the Deliverer, is not her husband, except in name; for months I have lived with them and I know it. Take her, King, take her now, this hour, or live to mourn her loss and your own folly all your life’s days.”

“I will not answer that slave’s falsehoods,” said Juanna, drawing herself up and speaking proudly, “and it were more worthy of you not to listen to them, King. I have spoken; now do your will. Be great or little, be noble or be base, as your nature teaches you.”

And suddenly she sank to the ground and, shaking her long hair about her face and arms, she burst into bitter weeping.

Twice the King glanced at her, then he turned his head as though he dare look no more, and spoke keeping his eyes fixed upon the wall.

“Rise, Queen,” he said hoarsely, “and cease your tears, since you are safe from me. Now as always I live to do your will, but I pray you, hide your face from me as much as may be, for, Lady, my heart is broken with love for you and I cannot bear to look on that which I have lost.”

Still sobbing, but filled with admiration and wonder that a savage could be thus generous, Juanna rose and began to murmur thanks, while the captains stared, and Soa mocked and cursed them both.

“Thank me not,” he said gently. “It seems that you, who can read all hearts, have read mine aright, or perchance you fashioned it as you would have it be. Now, having done with love, let us to war. Woman, what is the secret of that door?”

“Find it for yourself,” snarled Soa. “It is easy to open when once you know the spring—like a woman’s heart, Olfan. Or if you cannot find it, then it can be forced—like a woman’s love, Olfan. Surely you who are so skilled in the winning of a bride need not seek my counsel as to the opening of a door, for when I gave it but now upon the first of these matters, you would not hearken, Olfan, but were melted by the sight of tears that you should have kissed away.”

Juanna heard and from that moment made up her mind that whatever happened she had done with Soa. Nor was this wonderful, for few women could have pardoned what she had suffered at her hands.

“Drive the spear into her till she speaks, comrade,” said Olfan.

Then at the touch of steel Soa gave up mocking and told the secret of the door.