marriage feast. Say,
what were you about to do, O Child of Kings? Take the fat Joshua to your
breast?"

"Nay, Barung, I was about to take _this_ husband to my breast," and I
showed him the knife that was hidden in my marriage robe.

"No," he said, smiling, "I think the knife was for Joshua first. Still,
you are a brave woman who could save the life of him you love at
the cost of your own. Yet, bethink you, Child of Kings, for many a
generation your mothers have been queens, and under me you may still
remain a queen. How will one whose blood has ruled so long endure to
serve a Western man in a strange land?"

"That is what I go to find out, Barung, and if I cannot endure, then I
shall come back again, though not to rule the Abati, of whom I wash my
hands for ever. Yet, Barung, my heart tells me I shall endure."

"The Child of Kings has spoken," he said, bowing to me. "My best horse
awaits her, and five of my bravest guards shall ride with her to keep
her safe till she sights the camp of the Western men. I say happy is he
of them who was born to wear the sweet-scented Bud of the Rose upon his
bosom. For the rest, the man Japhet is in my hands. He yielded himself
to me who would not fight for his own people because of what they had
done to his friends, the white men. Lastly, already I have given orders
that the slaying should cease, since I need the Abati to be my slaves,
they who are cowards, but cunning in many arts. Only one more man shall
die," he added sternly, "and that is Joshua, who would have taken me by
a trick in the mouth of the pass. So plead not for him, for by the head
of Harmac it is in vain."

Now hearing this I did not plead, fearing lest I should anger Barung,
and but waste my breath.

At daybreak I started on the horse, having with me the five Fung
captains. As we crossed the marketplace I met those that remained alive
of the Abati, being driven in hordes like beasts, to hear their doom.
Among them was Prince Joshua, my uncle, whom a man led by a rope about
his neck, while another man thrust him forward from behind, since Joshua
knew that he went to his death and the road was one which he did not
wish to travel. He saw me, and cast himself down upon the ground, crying
to me to save him. I told him that I could not, though it is the truth,
I swear it before God, that, notwithstanding all the evil he had worked
toward me, toward Oliver my lord, and his companions, bringing to his
end that gall