Chapter XXVIII: “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.