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One of the party accompanying the Englishman spoke to a Wieroo that stood beside a door leading from the room. "Tell Him Who Speaks for Luata," he said, "that Fosh-bal-soj we could not find; but that in returning we found this creature within the temple, hiding. It must be the same that Fosh-bal-soj captured in the Sto-lu country during the last darkness.
"Are your people cor-sva-jo or cos-ata-lu?" "I do not understand you," said Bradley; "and now suppose you answer a few questions. Who are you? What country is this? Why did you bring me here?" Again the sepulchral grimace. "We are Wieroos Luata is our father. Caspak is ours. This, our country, is called Oo-oh. He would know from whence you came and why; but principally if you be cos-ata-lu."
"You would dare lay your low, vile, profaning hands upon even the lowliest of the Wieroos the sacred chosen of Luata!" Bradley was mad, and so he spoke in a very low, calm voice while a half-smile played across his lips but his cold, gray eyes were unsmiling.
"He who died here just after I came, told me," replied An-Tak. "He said there was a way out, that he had discovered it but was too weak to use his knowledge. He was trying to tell me how to find it when he died. Oh, Luata, if he had lived but a moment more!" "They do not feed you here?" asked Bradley. "No, they give me water once a day that is all." "But how have you lived, then?"
The Englishman looked toward the girl. "Shall I kill it?" he asked, half drawing his pistol. "What is best to do? I do not wish to endanger you." The Wieroo backed toward the door. "Defiler!" it screamed. "You dare to threaten one of the sacred chosen of Luata!" "Do not kill him," cried the girl, "for then there could be no hope for you.
In the distance, toward the temple, they could hear sounds as of a great gathering of Wieroos the peculiar, uncanny wailing rising above the dismal flapping of countless wings. "They have heard of the killing of Him Who Speaks for Luata," whispered the girl. "Soon they will spread in all directions searching for us." "And will they find us?"
Doubtless He Who Speaks for Luata would wish to see and question this strange thing." The creature addressed turned and slipped through the doorway, closing the door after it, but first depositing its curved blade upon the floor without. Its post was immediately taken by another and Bradley now saw that at least twenty such guards loitered in the immediate vicinity.
When they have committed a certain number of murders without being caught at it, they confess to Him Who Speaks for Luata and are advanced, after which they wear robes with a slash of some color I think yellow comes first.
From the temple still rose the sounds of commotion, now pierced by occasional shrill screams. "The murderers are abroad," whispered the girl. "Thus will another become the tongue of Luata. It is well for us, since it keeps them too busy to give the time for searching for us. They think that we cannot escape the city, and they know that we cannot leave the island and so do I."
It is one of those strange creatures that Fosh-bal-soj discovered first above the Band-lu country and followed back toward the beginning. He Who Speaks for Luata sent Fosh-bal-soj to fetch him one of the creatures, and here it is. It is hoped that it may be from another world and hold the secret of the cos-ata-lus."
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