. When he awoke again dawn was
breaking and Otter was calling to him in a loud, hoarse voice.

"Baas," he said, "come here, Baas."

Leonard jumped up and ran to him, to find the dwarf on his feet and
staring vacantly at the wall against which Soa had been sitting. She was
gone, but there on the floor lay the ropes with which she had been tied.

Leonard sprang at Otter and seized him by the shoulders.

"Wretched man!" he cried, "you have been sleeping, and now she has
escaped and we are lost."

"Yes, Baas, I have been sleeping. Kill me if you wish, for I deserve it.
And yet, Baas, never was I more wide-awake in my life until I drank that
water. I am not wont to sleep on guard, Baas."

"Otter," said Leonard, "that wife of yours has drugged you."

"It may be so, Baas. At least the woman has gone, and, say, whither has
she gone?"

"To Nam, her father," answered Leonard.

CHAPTER XXVII

FATHER AND DAUGHTER

While Leonard and Otter spoke thus in their amazement, had they but
known it, a still more interesting conversation was being carried on
some three hundred yards away. Its scene was a secret chamber hollowed
in the thickness of the temple wall, and the _dramatis personae_
consisted of Nam, the high priest, Soa, Juanna's servant, and Saga, wife
of the Snake.

Nam was an early riser, perhaps because his conscience would not allow
him to sleep, or because on this occasion he had business of importance
to attend to. At any rate, on the morning in question, long before
the break of dawn, he was seated in his little room alone, musing; and
indeed his thoughts gave him much food for reflection. As has been said,
he was a very aged man, and whatever may have been his faults, at
least he was earnestly desirous of carrying on the worship of the gods
according to the strict letter of the customs which had descended to him
from his forefathers, and which he himself had followed all his life.
In truth, from long consideration of them, their attributes, and the
traditions concerning them, Nam had come to believe in the actual
existence of these gods, although the belief was a qualified one and
somewhat half-hearted. Or, to put it less strongly, he had never allowed
his mind to entertain active doubt of the spiritual beings whose
earthly worship was so powerful a factor in his own material rule and
prosperity, and in that of his class. In its issues this half-faith of
his had been sufficiently real to induce him to ac