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Updated: June 3, 2025
So we went into the little room and awoke Oliver, who sprang up in a great fright, thinking that something untoward had happened at the mine. "What's wrong?" he asked of Japhet. "Have the Fung cut the wires?" "Nay, O Orme, a worse thing; I have discovered that the Prince Joshua has laid a plot to steal away 'Her-whose-name-is-high." "What do you mean? Set out all the story, Japhet," said Oliver.
On the coming night we must slip through the Fung, and before midday on the morrow we should either have entered Mur, or failed to have entered Mur, which meant death, or, what was worse, captivity among barbarians, and subsequent execution, preceded probably by torture of one sort or another.
Shadrach replied that there was such a back door facing to the north some eight days' journey away. Only at this season of the year it could not be reached, since beyond the Mountains of Mur in that direction was a great lake, out of which flowed the river Ebur in two arms that enclosed the whole plain of Fung.
Moreover, immediately behind the banner in the midst of a bodyguard rode a delicately shaped woman clothed in pure white. It was the Child of Kings herself! Two more minutes and we were among them. I halted my camel and looked round to see that the Fung cavalry were retreating. After the events of that morning clearly they had no stomach left for a fight with a superior force.
I bowed, and he went on: "The Child of Kings, hereditary ruler of this land, somewhat against the advice of her Council, has thought fit to employ you and your Gentile companions in order that by your skill and certain arts of which you are masters you may damage its ancient enemies, the Fung, and in reward has promised to pay you well should you succeed in your endeavours.
"We call it a compass," he answered, "and it tells me that beyond us lies the east, where the sun rises; also it shows at what height we stand above the sea, that great water which you have never seen, O Child of Kings. Say now, if we could walk through this rock, what should we find out yonder?" "The lion-headed idol of the Fung, I have been told," she answered.
"But Harmac has come to Mur, Roderick," I said; "at least his head has fallen on to the cliff that overlooks the city." "Oh! my father," he answered, "then that make great difference. When Fung find out that head of Harmac has come here, no doubt they come after him, for head his most holy bit, especially as they want hang all the Abati whom they not like."
Therefore I patted this one on the head, since, after all, he is a clever dog who knows things that we do not know; for instance, how to destroy the idol of the Fung. O great Abati, can any of you really have believed that I, of the ancient race of Solomon and Sheba, I, the Child of Kings, purposed to give my noble hand to a vagrant Gentile come hither for hire?
Moreover, I will give warning to my people, the Abati, that we are coming, so that they may be at hand to help us if there is need." "How?" asked Orme. "By firing the reeds" and he pointed to the dense masses of dead vegetation about "as I arranged that I would do before we left Mur many months ago. The Fung, if they see it, will think only that it is the work of some wandering fisherman."
If the plan succeeded and the idol was destroyed, my own belief was that the Fung must thereby be exasperated. Evidently they knew some road into this stronghold. It would be used. They would pour their thousands up it, a general massacre would follow, of which, justly, we should be the first victims. I reached the chamber where Oliver sat brooding alone, for Japhet was patrolling the line.
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