tter."

"Friend," answered Hokosa, "you should have been not a soldier but a
pleader of causes. True it is then that the prince will only cause my
life to fly, but whether that is a smaller sin I leave you to judge."

"Keep him prisoner," said another, "till we learn how these matters
end."

"Nay," answered Hafela, "for then he will surely outwit us and escape.
Noma, what shall we do with this man who was your husband? Tell us, for
you should know best how to deal with him."

"Let me think," she answered, and she looked first at the ground beneath
her, next around her, then upwards toward the skies.

Now they stood at the foot of the koppie, on the flat top of which grew
the great Tree of Doom, that for generations had served the People of
Fire as a place of execution of their criminals, or of those who fell
under the ban of the king or of the witch-doctors. Among and above the
finger-like fronds of this strange and dreadful-looking tree towered
that white dead limb shaped like a cross, which Owen had pointed out
to his disciple John, taking it to be a sign and a promise. This cross
stood out clear against the sinking moon. It caught Noma's eye, and a
devilish thought entered into her heart.

"You would keep this fellow alive?" she said, "and yet you would
not suffer him to escape. See, there above you is a cross such as he
worships. Bind him to it as he says the Man whom he worships was bound,
and let that dead Man help him if he may."

The prince and those about Noma shrank back a little in horror. They
were cruel men rendered more cruel by their superstitious fear of one
whom they believed to be uncanny; one to whom they attributed inhuman
powers which he was exercising to their destruction, but still this
doom seemed dreadful to them. Noma read their minds and went on
passionately:--

"You deem me unmerciful, but you do not know what I have suffered at
this wizard's hands. For his sake and because of him I am haunted. For
his own purposes he opened the gates of Distance, he sent me down among
the dwellers in Death, causing me to interpret their words for him. I
did so, but the dwellers came back out of Death with me, and from that
hour they have not left me, nor will they ever leave me; for night by
night they sojourn at my side, tormenting me with terrors. He has
told me that through my mouth that spirit whom he drew into my body
prophesied that he should be 'lifted up above the people.' Let the
prophecy