Chapter XI. The Cave of the Rooirand - Page 2

answers in that rich voice which on board the liner had preached the gospel of Christ. The tongue I did not know, and I doubt if my neighbours were in better case. It must have been some old sacred language - Phoenician, Sabaean, I know not what - which had survived in the rite of the Snake.

Then came silence while the fire died down and the smoke eddied away in wreaths towards the river. The priest's lips moved as if in prayer: of Laputa I saw only the back, and his head was bowed.

Suddenly a rapt cry broke from the Keeper. 'God has spoken,' he cried. 'The path is clear. The Snake returns to the House of its Birth.'

An attendant led forward a black goat, which bleated feebly. With a huge antique knife the old man slit its throat, catching the blood in a stone ewer. Some was flung on the fire, which had burned small and low.

'Even so,' cried the priest, 'will the king quench in blood the hearth-fires of his foes.'

Then on Laputa's forehead and bare breast he drew a bloody cross. 'I seal thee,' said the voice, 'priest and king of God's people.' The ewer was carried round the assembly, and each dipped his finger in it and marked his forehead. I got a dab to add to the other marks on my face.

'Priest and king of God's people,' said the voice again, 'I call thee to the inheritance of John. Priest and king was he, king of kings, lord of hosts, master of the earth. When he ascended on high he left to his son the sacred Snake, the ark of his valour, to be God's dower and pledge to the people whom He has chosen.'

I could not make out what followed. It seemed to be a long roll of the kings who had borne the Snake. None of them I knew, but at the end I thought I caught the name of Tchaka the Terrible, and I remembered Arcoll's tale.

The Keeper held in his arms a box of curiously wrought ivory, about two feet long and one broad. He was standing beyond the ashes, from which, in spite of the blood, thin streams of smoke still ascended. He opened it, and drew out something which swung from his hand like a cascade of red fire.

'Behold the Snake,' cried the Keeper, and every man in the assembly, excepting Laputa and including me, bowed his head to the ground and cried 'Ow.'

'Ye who have seen the Snake,' came the voice, on you is the vow of silence and peace. No blood shall ye shed of man or beast, no flesh shall ye eat till the vow is taken from you. From the hour of midnight till sunrise on the second day ye are bound to God. Whoever shall break the vow, on him shall the curse fall. His blood shall dry in his veins, and his flesh shrink on his bones. He shall be an outlaw and accursed, and there shall follow him through life and death the Avengers of the Snake. Choose ye, my people; upon you is the vow.'

By this time we were all flat on our faces, and a great cry of assent went up. I lifted my head as much as I dared to see what would happen