Who
can be condemned without a hearing? When these men can plead
for themselves, then it will be time to put them to the proof.'
Here was a clever loophole of escape, and the vindictive old
priest took it, little as he liked it.
'So be it, oh Queens,' he said. 'Let the men go in peace, and
when they have learnt our tongue then let them speak. And I,
even I, will make humble supplication at the altar lest pestilence
fall on the land by cause of the sacrilege.'
These words were received with a murmur of applause, and in another
minute we were marching out of the temple surrounded by the royal
guards.
But it was not till long afterwards that we learnt the exact
substance of what had passed, and how hardly our lives had been
wrung out of the cruel grip of the Zu-Vendi priesthood, in the
face of which even the Queens were practically powerless. Had
it not been for their strenuous efforts to protect us we should
have been slain even before we set foot in the Temple of the
Sun. The attempt to drop us bodily into the fiery pit as an
offering was a last artifice to attain this end when several
others quite unsuspected by us had already failed.
CHAPTER XV
SORAIS' SONG
After our escape from Agon and his pious crew we returned to
our quarters in the palace and had a very good time.
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