The seconds passed on as the minute hand of the watch went round from ten to twenty, from twenty to thirty, from thirty to forty. A few more instants and the game was played. Had that dream of his been vain imagining, and was all his faith nothing but a dream wondered Owen?
Well, if so, it would be best that he should die. But he did not believe that it was so; he believed that the Power above him would intervene to save--not him, indeed, but all this people.
"Let us make an end," said Hokosa, "the time is done."
"Yes," said Owen, "the time is done--and /the king lives!/"
Even as he spoke the pulses in the old man's forehead were seen to throb, and the veins in his neck to swell as they had swollen after he had swallowed the poison; then once more they shrank to their natural size. Umsuka stirred a hand, groaned, sat up, and spoke:--"What has chanced to me?" he said. "I have descended into deep darkness, now once again I see light."
No one answered, for all were staring, terrified and amazed, at the Messenger--the white wizard to whom had been given power to bring men back from the gate of death. At length Owen said:--"This has chanced to you, King: that evil which I prophesied to you if you refused to listen to the voice of mercy has fallen upon you. By now you would have been dead, had it not pleased Him Whom I serve, working through me, His messenger, to bring you back to look upon the sun. Thank Him, therefore, and worship Him, for He alone is Master of the Earth," and he held the crucifix before his eyes.
The humbled monarch lifted his hand--he who for many years had made obeisance to none--and saluted the symbol, saying:--"Messenger, I thank Him and I worship Him, though I know Him not. Say now, how did His magic work upon me to make me sick to death and to recover me?"
"By the hand of man, King, and by the virtues that lie hid in Nature.
Did you not drink of a cup, and were not many things mixed in the draught? Was it not but now in your mind to speak words that should bring down the head of pride and evil, and lift up the head of truth and goodness?"
"O White Man, how know you these things?" gasped the king.
"I know them, it is enough. Say, who was it that stirred the bowl, King, and who gave you to drink?"
Now Umsuka staggered to his feet, and cried aloud in a voice that was thick with rage:--"By my head and the heads of my fathers I smell the plot! My son, the Prince Hafela, has learned my counsel, and would have slain me before I said words that should set him beneath the feet of Nodwengo. Seize him, captains, and let him be brought before me for judgment!"
Men looked this way and that to carry out the command of the king, but Hafela was gone. Already he was upon the hillside, running as a man has rarely run before--his face set towards that fastness in the mountains where he could find refuge among his mother's tribesmen and the regiments which he commanded. Of late they had been sent thither by the king that they might be far from the Great Place when their prince was disinherited.
"He is fled," said one; "I saw him go."
"Pursue him and bring him back, dead or alive!" thundered the king. "A hundred head of cattle to the man who lays hand upon him before he reaches the /impi/ of the North, for they will fight for him!"
"Stay!" broke in Owen. "Once before this day I prayed of you, King, to show mercy, and you refused it. Will you refuse me a second time?
Leave him his life who has lost all else."
"That he may rebel against me? Well, White Man, I owe you much, and for this time your wisdom shall be my guide, though my heart speaks against such gentleness. Hearken, councillors and people, this is my decree: that Hafela, my son, who would have murdered me, be deposed from his place as heir to my throne, and that Nodwengo, his brother, be set in that place, to rule the People of Fire after me when I die."
"It is good, it is just!" said the council. "Let the king's word be done."
"Hearken again," said Umsuka. "Let this white man, who is named Messenger, be placed in the House of Guests and treated with all honour; let oxen be given him from the royal herds and corn from the granaries, and girls of noble blood for wives if he wills them.
Hokosa, into your hand I deliver him, and, great though you are, know this, that if but a hair of his head is harmed, with your goods and your life you shall answer for it, you and all your house."
"Let the king's word be done," said the councillors again.
