A violent thumping outside brought us back to a sense of our real position, and when the thumping was renewed Hanno went to the door, and having addressed some one with a few guttural words, which were received with a half-approving grunt, he returned to us.
"And now," he said, his voice assuming its old tone of vivacity, "perhaps you would like to know what brings me here. I am come to conduct you to the grand temple of the Suomi; and a fine structure you will see it is, built of reeds and fish-bones in tip-top style. You are there to be sacrificed to the great god Jono."
"So then Jono is a god, is he?" I said; "but if you are his high priest I presume we need not give ourselves much alarm."
Himilco said that if this Jono were the god of fish-oil he most heartily wished that he might be sent some hundred fathoms down below the sea.
"Gently, gently, good pilot!" said Hanno, with mock solemnity; "you must not speak disparagingly of the great divinity. I can, however, tell you one thing. Jono has no more liking for fish-oil than you have yourself. No one loves a draught of good wine better. And I may as well tell you at once who he is. He is none other than our friend Jonah of Eltekeh! our incomparable trumpeter, Jonah!"
"Ah! didn't I say," cried Himilco, "that no one but Jonah could bring out such a flourish as that?"
Hanno went on to tell us that the people were already assembled in the temple awaiting the arrival of ourselves, their destined victims, and in reply to Chamai, who suggested that we should rise up and attack them bodily, informed us that there were more than three thousand of them, so that any resistance on our part would not only be useless, but must result in our immediate destruction.
"No;" he continued; "you have no alternative but to trust yourselves implicitly to the influence of the mighty Jono and of his high priest Hono, your humble servant. My first proceeding will be to acquaint the assembly that I have released you from your bonds, and that by the agency of magic I have rendered you quite mild and submissive."
"Allow me to interrupt you for a moment," I said; "but I am intensely anxious to learn whether you know anything of our comrades?"