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That all she say, and quite enough too. Come on quick, she want you and no like wait." By now the Asika had passed almost round the hall, and was standing opposite to an empty niche beyond and above which there were perhaps a score of bodies gold-plated in the usual fashion.
Also Asika always die young, they never let her become old woman, but how she die and where they bury her, no one know 'cept priests. Sometimes she have girl child who become Asika after her, but if they have boy child, they kill him. I think this Asika daughter of her who make love to your reverend uncle.
"Does my house please you?" the Asika asked of him. "Not altogether," he answered, "I think it is dark." "From the beginning my spirit has ever loved the dark, Vernoon. I think that it was shaped in some black midnight."
Alan looked, but at first in that dim light could only discover long rows of gleaming objects which reached from the floor to the roof. "Come and see," said the Asika, and taking a lamp from that table on which lay the gems, she led him past the piles of gold to one side of the vault or hall. Then he saw, and although he did not show it, like Jeekie he was afraid.
She scanned him intently for a little while, then passed round to where Jeekie lay and appeared to pinch his ear so hard that he wriggled and uttered a stifled groan. "How is your lord, dog?" she whispered. "Better, O Asika, I think that last medicine do us good, though it make me very sick inside.
If she don't, can't help it and no harm done. Break my heart, but only one old woman less. Anyhow she hold tongue, that main point, and I really very glad find my ma, who never hoped to see again. Heaven very kind to Jeekie, give him back to family bosom," he added, unctuously. That day there were no excitements, and to Alan's intense relief he saw nothing of the Asika.
The horns and drums set up a bray of triumph, the Asika clapped her hands approvingly, the spectators cheered, and another victim was bundled down the gangway and submitted to the judgment of the Bonsas, which came at him like a hungry pike at a frog.
Then he mounted guard over the Mungana, as did Jeekie, although he shook his head over their prospect of escape. "No go," he muttered, "no go! If we get past priests, Asika catch us with her magic. When I bolt with your reverend uncle last time, Little Bonsa arrange business because she go abroad fetch you. Now likely as not she bowl you out, and then good-bye Jeekie."
Then it occurred to him that it might be because he was in the coffin, and at that moment in his dream he heard the Asika asking Jeekie what he saw; heard Jeekie answering also, "A burying in the country called England." "Of whom, Jeekie?" Then after some hesitation, the answer: "Of a lady whom my lord loves very much. They bury her." "What was her name, Jeekie?" "Her name was Barbara."
In that utter quiet he thought even that he could hear them stir within their winding sheets, or it may have been that the Asika had risen and moved among them on some errand of her own. Far away something fell to the floor, a very light object, such as flake of rock or a scale of gold.
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