Chapter XXVI: “Both by land and sea we have travell’d far.”

Mhaki, the high-priest, squatted among the ruins of a forgotten city watching the night shadows gather. He sat with his back against a marble block, listening to the sounds drifting through the night.

There was one that always left him alert--a single howl of hyena’s laughter.

He watched the shadows gather till the darkness shut out everything, and brought a life all its own--a whispering, rustling, creeping, stealthy life that preyed one on the other. Every noise that drifted through the bush he noted. Presently a sudden cessation of all sounds made his old eyes go sharply to a track just ahead of him.

It was one of those silences that fall upon all smaller forest life when a common enemy is abroad. The high-priest listened, knowing it meant either the presence of man or some big beast of prey, and his hand grasped a spear lying just in front of him.

Then came a sound that made him start up quickly.

About three hundred yards away, along the one lone trail that led to Kallu, came a long-drawn howl, a solitary hyena’s cry. There was a moment’s pause, then two howls came, from Mhaki’s lips this time. Three answered him. The repetition made his gnarled old hands lose their grip of things, and his spear fell to the ground.

It was Nanza’s signal. The truth had come to Kallu at last! And Nanza’s return said his worst fears were verified.

Presently a dark figure loomed up.

With trembling knees the old priest went to meet him.

“Hail, Nanza,” he said, “what message do you bring? Yet your return spells the Sultan Essel’s treachery.”

“I bring proof to all Bhessu said,” Nanza answered. “And, Mhaki, night whispers to me that the Star is in Kallu. It should please my cousin to see the daughter of his mother’s murderer sacrificed on the altar her father defiled.”

“How do you know the Star is here?”

“Night whispered it,” Nanza answered. “But this is no time for gossip. In some safe spot, let me show you the proofs I’ve brought.”

Mhaki drew out a soiled cloth and tied it over his visitor’s eyes. Then he led him towards the wilderness of creepers and shattered masonry.

After they had gone some distance Nanza was told to stoop and crawl. When the bandage was removed, he found himself in what appeared to be an underground cellar.

Mhaki produced a wooden lever from a corner and inserted it into a crevice between the flags forming the floor.

“There are many ways into the Temple of Night, but this is known only to me and the Sultan,” he grunted, as a two-foot square stone heaved up in response to his efforts.

Beneath was a narrow spiral stairway, twisting down a funnel-like hole until it was lost in darkness.

Taking a lamp from a niche near, Mhaki started down. The winding stair led to a heavy wooden door. This the high-priest opened.

The feeble light showed a fair-sized cave with curious signs and symbols on the rugged walls. A spring gurgled up in one corner; close by was a slit in the solid rock, wide enough for a man to walk through, that led on to darkness again.

A lounge, a table and a case of books showed up in one corner.

There Mhaki went, placing his battered lamp on the table.

“This is the Chamber of Musing,” he volunteered. “It lies just behind the Throne of Night.”

He paused and pointed to the slit.

“That leads to the temple, but the secret of its entrance is known only to the reigning sultan and the high-priest. Now, Nanza, the proofs. And if your story is false, you will stay here until death finds you. For no one knows the way that leads to and from this room except the Sultan Essel and myself.”

Nanza smiled.

“I, at least, am no traitor,” he said proudly. “Here are the proofs, white man’s proofs with seals and documents and signatures as you requested.”

From his loin cloth he drew a flat packet and laid it on the table.

With shaking fingers Mhaki opened it.

“How did you come by all these?” he asked, as several photographs and a bulky sealed letter came to light.

“As you advised, I went to Calabar. There I made friends with people who had been friends of Bhessu’s, Cooper, that is, and the white woman who was his wife. He had talked much about her. I learnt where they had met and what her name was from a man to whom he had given a photograph, taken the day they were married. I heard all that was said, and afterwards, when darkness fell, I returned by stealth to the house of this great talker and took that picture. Then on to England. From friends I made during the voyage I learnt the manner of tracing people among the whites. I was told there were those in London who lived by finding out all concerning others. To such I went. Gold did the rest. There, signed and sealed, untouched by me since I left their office, is what they found. It proves the woman who was Cooper’s wife to be no murderer’s child. She was the daughter of a man who served in a store where cloth was sold. The niece of another who to this day bakes bread for the city. And he bears witness to all that is written here. There is a picture, too, that I bought from him.”

From the papers, Nanza drew out a portrait of two girls, with dark and fair heads together.

“That,” he said, pointing to Leslie, “is the child of that foul murderer. Not this one, as the Sultan Essel would have us believe,” Nanza went on, putting a black finger on Molly’s pictured face. “Because none of us in Kallu, but you, had any white man’s learning, he thought we were easy to dupe. Here is what the people of London told me. Write to them if you wish. I’m content to stay here until you have proved my words to be true.”

Mhaki opened the sealed letter.

Messrs. Speyer and Speyer, private detectives of London, would have been very surprised had they known that the mass of information a wealthy colored client had desired them to find concerning a certain Molly Seaton, married about two years before at a Liverpool registry office to a negro named Horten Cooper, whom she had met in a Harrogate hotel, would be opened in the inner chamber of a heathen temple, some five hundred miles up-country in West Africa.

Tracing Molly had proved a simple task. From Harrogate they had followed her history backwards, through the years of her clerkship in London to a childhood spent in Islington where her father had been a cashier in a big drapery store. It described her minutely at every stage of her career. There were copies of her birth certificate, dated twenty-nine years before, and of her marriage certificate. The letter told how Molly Seaton had found a child called Leslie Graham, supposed to have been deserted in London, about eight years before, and how the two had lived together to within a few months of Molly’s marriage. It proved beyond doubt that the Molly Seaton born in Islington twenty-nine years ago was the same Molly Seaton who had married a negro called Horten Cooper in Liverpool twenty-seven years later.

For more than two hours Mhaki pored over it all. He read and re-read the letter and studied the photographs. Yet, in spite of everything, his faithful old heart wanted more proof before condemning the son of his beloved Irena.

“I would have more proof,” he said at length. “The condemning of a Sultan of Kallu is no light matter. There may be some flaw that even these people have not grasped. I must have more proof before I lay these papers before the other priests.”

Evilly Nanza smiled, the smile of one who holds the ace of trumps up his sleeve.

“I’ve proof beyond all this. Proof that will satisfy even you. And I found it for myself. I made friends with that uncle who bakes bread, and I paid him well to tell me all he knew about these two women. He had a box containing goods belonging to his niece and her friend. And I went through it carefully. I found there a picture of two faces both of which Kallu knows.”

From his loin cloth Nanza drew out a thin, oblong packet, wrapped in oil silk. This he opened and handed to the high-priest.

“Who are these two?” he asked.

Speechless Mhaki looked at the picture.

It was a photograph of a man of about fifty-five, with a handsome, dissipated face. Standing by his side was a little girl of perhaps eleven, who smiled out at the world in a frank, friendly way. The first Mhaki knew at a glance. He was the stranger who had come to Kallu and murdered the Queen Irena. On the second his eyes lingered. Big, dark eyes looked back at him with fearless innocence. In spite of the difference between the child of eleven and the grown-up woman, he knew who it was. The girl the Sultan proposed to marry!

There was no room for further doubt. It was proof direct. The Sultan Essel had lied!

The old man got up suddenly, the gleam of the fanatic in his eyes.

“Hail, Nanza! There has been a law these twenty years in Kallu, one of the Sultan Essel’s making: ‘Death to all traitors.’”

With savage satisfaction Nanza laughed.

“I thought that would satisfy you,” he said.

“I want no further proof. I see here the murderer with his child. I must have time to convince the priesthood of the truth of all you have brought. The Sultan is Lord of Doomana, and none will believe his treachery readily. I have a plan. Give me time. It’s for your sake I ask. Did those beyond know of your presence here you would be slain before I could save you. We must work stealthily. First I must convince the priests of the Sultan’s treachery. If they are satisfied we will wait. Then, on the night of his marriage, when all the tribe are gathered together to witness it, we will accuse him as he stands with her, on the Throne of Night, desiring to make her Queen of Kallu--this offspring of the accursed one, this daughter of his mother’s murderer! There will be no escape for him or her. First he shall see her die. Then we will deal with him.”

Mhaki swept together all the correspondence. Then, blowing out the light, he seized his companion’s arm and led him on into darkness.