He looked at her pityingly now. He had believed that she was an accomplice of the medicine man in a shrewd fraud, and he had merely wanted to share the joke, risky as it was. To find her an accidental and unwilling monarch struck him dumb.
"That is very hard," he said slowly. "Look!"
He parted the folds of the teepee door curtain so that she looked out toward the village. Three women sat next the door and beyond were groups of braves, still in their war paint, some conversing, some stalwart and still. They seemed to be doing nothing in particular.
"Well?" questioned Pauline.
He led her across the teepee to a narrow slit in the rear curtain. Through this she peered as she had peered through the door and saw exactly what she had seen though the door—women crouching at their tasks in the near foreground, an armed circle of warriors beyond. Now she understood.
"I am a prisoner then?"
"They will guard you night and day."
"Why?"
"It was prophesied that a Great White Queen would come to lead them to battle. You have come, as the prophet said, and you have promised to lead them to battle. Above all, be proud, and not afraid."
The ioterpreter hesitated a moment.