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

stone on to-night, mother?” asks her eldest son Thomas, who with his two sisters has come down to desert.

“Hush, dear,” she answers, as Otter advances to that stand on which the Bible is chained, holding a glass filled with port in his hand.

“Deliverer and Shepherdess,” he says, speaking in Sisutu, “on this day eleven years gone Baas Tom died out yonder; I, who drink wine but once a year, drink to the memory of Baas Tom, and to our happy meeting with him in the gold House of the Great-Great”; and swallowing the port with a single gulp Otter throws the glass behind him, shattering it on the floor.

“Amen,” says Leonard. “Now, love, your toast.”

“I drink to the memory of Francisco who died to save me,” says Juanna in a low voice.

“Amen,” repeats her husband.

For a moment there is silence, for Leonard gives no toast; then the boy Thomas lifts his glass and cries,

“And I drink to Olfan, the king of the People of the Mist, and to Otter, who killed the Snake-god, and whom I love the best of all of them. Mother, may Otter get the spear and the rope and tell us the story of how he dragged you and father up the ice-bridge?”