ay comfort them
out of the store of your wisdom."

"And if we have no comfort to give, Nam?"

"Then, Queen, the people ask that you will be pleased to meet them
to-morrow in the temple at the moon-rise, when the night is one hour
old, that they may talk with you there through the mouth of me, your
servant."

"And if we weary of your temple and will not come, Nam?" asked Juanna.

"Then this is the command of the people, O Aca: that we bring you
thither, and it is a command that may not be disobeyed," answered the
high priest slowly.

"Beware, Nam," replied Juanna; "strange things happen here that call for
vengeance. Our servants pass away like shadows, and in their place we
find such weapons as you carry," and she pointed to the priests' knives.
"We will come to-morrow night at the rising of the moon, but again I say
to you, beware, for now our mercy is but as a frayed rope, and it were
well for you all that the cord should not break."

"Ye know best whither your servants have wandered, O Aca," said the
priest, stretching out his hands in deprecation, and speaking in a tone
of which the humility did not veil the insolence, "for true gods such as
ye are can guard their servants. We thank you for your words, O ye gods,
and we pray you to be merciful to us, for the threats of true gods are
very terrible. And now one little word. I ask justice of you, O ye gods.
She who was given to be bride of the Snake, my niece who is named Saga,
has been cruelly beaten by some evil-doer here in the palace, as I know,
for but now I met her bruised and weeping. I ask of you then that
ye search out this evil-doer and punish him with death or stripes.
Farewell, O ye high gods."

Leonard looked at the priest as he bowed humbly before the thrones, and
a desire to take Otter's advice and kill him entered his heart, for he
knew that he had come to drag them to their trial and perhaps to doom.
He still had his revolver, and it would have been easy to shoot him, for
Nam's broad breast was a target that few could miss. And yet, what could
it help them to shed his blood? There were many to fill his place if
he died, and violence would certainly be answered with violence. No, he
would let him be, and they must bide their fate.

CHAPTER XXVIII

JUANNA PREVARICATES

The morrow drew towards its evening. Like those that had gone before
it, this day had been misty and miserable, only distinguished from its
predecessors by the fall of some