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Updated: May 15, 2025
"Ah, but she is, and infinitely older!" answered Siluce. "No man knows how old she is; there is no record of her birth and parentage; she has been queen of the Bandokolo for unnumbered ages." "Oh, but that is nonsense, you know!" I retorted; "unless of course your records have been very badly kept. Why, in my country, if a man lives to be thirteen hundred moons old we regard him as a marvel.
"Pretty nearly," I replied. And then I repeated what Siluce had said as to the treatment which she had received, and the causes for that treatment; and I ventured to hint that, according to the views of civilised people, the unhappy girl had been atrociously misused. "So that was the story Siluce told you?" remarked the queen, when I had finished. "Now listen to mine, and judge between us.
As for Bimbane, what little I could induce him to say about her only went to confirm the astounding account of her that Siluce had given; and I confess that once or twice during the progress of that conversation I very seriously asked myself whether, after all, it would not be wiser on my part to turn back there and then, instead of pushing on any farther into so extraordinary a country, and placing myself in the power of so extraordinary a woman.
"Ye-e-es," answered Bimbane slowly, "I ought to know, certainly; but it happens that I do not. For at the moment when you encountered Siluce, it chanced that my attention was distracted from you for a time; and when at length I was again free to visualise you, the woman was lying dead in your arms, and so I missed hearing what she told you. But I can guess; and I have guessed aright, have I not?"
Then she changed her mind and determined to forbid thine entrance into her country. And now, quite recently, she has again changed her mind, and has decided to receive thee in peace, with all honour. She it was who directed me how and when to come and where to lie in wait for thee. Ay, she even knows that Siluce, the outlawed rebel, went out upon the Dark Path from thine arms."
And after careful consideration I chose Anuti, one of the captains of my guard, because he seemed the most suitable for the position, and the man most likely to be helpful to me in my difficult task of government. "But Siluce, who was one of the women of my household, had already seen Anuti, and desired him as her husband, although the man would have naught to do with her.
"I promise you, Siluce, that, if I can, I will take the stone from her," I answered, more to soothe the unhappy little creature's consuming anxiety, I must confess, than with any serious intention at that moment of fulfilling my promise.
And then, when at length we reached Anuti's dwelling, that individual introduced me to some thirty of the most important and influential nobles and chiefs of Bandokolo, among whom was Mindula, the father of the unhappy Siluce; and, one after the other, these men arose and related the wrongs, the cruelties, and the injustices which they and theirs had suffered at the hands of Bimbane, accompanying their statements with proofs of so convincing a character that I no longer found it possible to disbelieve.
Nevertheless, it seemed to me that honesty was the best policy, therefore I answered her, after seating myself at as respectful a distance from her as the divan would allow: "If I am indeed prejudiced at all against Your Majesty, it is because of the story that Siluce told me." "Ah, yes, Siluce!" retorted the queen rather bitterly. "She died in your arms.
And then it suddenly occurred to me that Bimbane's version of the Siluce incident was entirely unsupported save by her own assertions, while the statement of Siluce herself made with her dying breath, when, it might be assumed, she could have no possible motive for telling a falsehood was fully confirmed by Anuti.
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