Then softly at first, but gradually more and more distinctly, the whisper was passed round:
“She is dead!”
And in the moonlight all of us there could see on the woman’s dress a fast-spreading, large stain of blood.
“He who sheddeth the blood of man,” came in thundering accents from the high priest, “his blood shall be shed. People of Kamt, who stand here before the face of Isis, I command ye to tell me whose hand spilt the blood of that woman.”
“Mine,” said Hugh, quietly, throwing his knife far from him, which fell, with weird and metallic jingle, upon the granite floor. “The hand of him whom Ra has sent among you all, the hand of him whom Osiris loveth, who has come to rule over you, bringing you a message from the foot of the throne of your god. Touch him, any of you, if you dare!”
Shuddering, awestruck, all gazed upon him, while I, blindly, impetuously, rushed to his side, to be near him, to ward off the blow which I felt convinced would fall upon his daring head, or share it with him if I were powerless to save. I don’t think that I ever admired him so much as I did then—I who had often seen him recoil with horror at thought of killing a beast, who understood the extraordinary, almost superhuman sacrifice it must have cost him, to free with his own hand this wretched woman from her awful doom.
But with all his enthusiasm, scientific visionary as he was, Hugh Tankerville knew human nature well, knew that, awestruck with their own superstition, they no more would have dared to touch him then than they would have desecrated one of their own gods. There was long and deathlike silence while Hugh stood before them all with hand raised upwards in a gesture of command and defiance; then, slowly, one by one, the judges and the jury and all the assembled multitude fell forward upon their faces and kissed the granite floor, while a low murmur went softly echoing through the pillars of the hall:
“Oh, envoy of Osiris! Beloved of the gods!”
Then I looked towards Ur-tasen and saw that the high priest, too, had knelt down like the others. Hugh had conquered for the moment, through the superstition of these strange people and the magic of his personality, but I dared not think of what the consequences of his daring act might be.
Without another word he beckoned to me to follow him, and together we went out of the judgment-hall of Men-ne-fer.