'Ho! place there,' she cried; 'place, I say; make way for the
Queens, and those whom the Queens cover with their "kaf" (mantle).'
'And if I refuse, oh Queen?' said Agon between his teeth.
'Then will I cut a path with my guards,' was the proud answer;
'ay, even in the presence of thy sanctuary, and through the bodies
of thy priests.'
Agon turned livid with baffled fury. He glanced at the people
as though meditating an appeal to them, but saw clearly that
their sympathies were all the other way. The Zu-Vendi are a
very curious and sociable people, and great as was their sense
of the enormity that we had committed in shooting the sacred
hippopotami, they did not like the idea of the only real live
strangers they had seen or heard of being consigned to a fiery
furnace, thereby putting an end for ever to their chance of extracting
knowledge and information from, and gossiping about us. Agon
saw this and hesitated, and then for the first time Nyleptha
spoke in her soft sweet voice.
'Bethink thee, Agon,' she said, 'as my sister Queen has said,
these men may also be servants of the Sun. For themselves they
cannot speak, for their tongues are tied. Let the matter be
adjourned till such time as they have learnt our language.
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