United States or Jersey ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"We'll be even yet with that scoundrel and traitor, Kouaga," Omar said, turning to me when Goliba had finished. "If the command be given every man in Mo would go forth against Samory's accursed hordes," Goliba declared with emphasis, removing the mouthpiece of his long pipe from his lips. "But how dost thou intend now to act?" he asked Omar. "Remember thou art banished until the Naya's death.
"I, Omar, Prince of Mo, am thy leader in this struggle of my people against oppression and misrule. If they will declare in my favour I will free them. I have spoken." "Thou hast until noon to-morrow to quit this city," Goliba said. "Hasten not thy decision, but what I will show thee secretly ere long will perhaps convince thee of the terrors of the Naya's reign.
The scene is fascinating in this frame; and one also discovers how very much askew the façade of S. Mark's must be, for instead of seeing, immediately in front, the centre of the far end of the square, as most persons would expect, one sees Naya's photograph shop at the corner.
The next day my father-in-law came; Naya's daughter was baptized under the name of Valentine de Villefort, and on the bed of the child, my happy parents-in-law laid my appointment as district-attorney in Paris, and bonds to the value of three hundred thousand francs. Naya, with the dead child in her arms, was found the next day at our door. They were both buried in the potter's field.
"Truly," I said, turning to Omar, "the Naya who gave an order for your assassination is seated on the edge of a volcano." "Yes," cried the white-bearded old councillor. "The country hath struggled and groaned long and in vain under the Naya's tyrannical sway; the uprising will be swift and revengeful." "When will it occur?" I asked, with eagerness. "To-night," answered Goliba in a quiet tone.
"That is one of the Naya's personal attendants," observed Omar, recognizing the dress, but unable to distinguish the features of the murdered man, so decomposed were they. "He perhaps participated in the plot, and to secure his silence, or his portion of the booty, his fellow-conspirators struck him to earth." "But to whom is due the chief responsibility in this affair?" I asked.
We had eaten from the gold dishes in which the Naya's food had been served; we had quenched our thirst from the jewel-encrusted goblets that she was wont to raise to her thin blue lips. By Omar's side I thus tasted, for the first time, the pleasures of royalty.
Then looking him straight in the face, he said with a puzzled expression upon his countenance: "Thou hast altered since thou hast dwelt among the English. Thy face is not that of Omar who left many moons ago with our Naya's trusted servant Makhana." "Yet I am still Omar," he exclaimed, laughing.
"To him we owe all these misfortunes," I said. "Yes, everything. But if only we get into Mo he shall render an account of his misdeeds to my mother. No mercy will be shown him, for before the Naya's wrath the nation trembles." "But our position at the present moment is one of extreme gravity," I observed.
The magnificent hall was deserted. The bloodshed had been frightful. The courts were heaped with dead and dying. Several chairs were lying overturned, as if the courtiers and slaves had left hastily, and even across the seat of royalty one of the Naya's rich bejewelled robes of state had been hastily flung down.
Word Of The Day