“And the very fine fluid in those wine casks, so generously presented by the King to the Ambassador’s wife, was drawn from the river Pactolus,” and she added, seeing Will a little mystified by the allusion, “whose sands were of gold.”
“And I had guessed that.”
“And the carters were not ordinary carters.”
“I had guessed that.”
“But, though they were the King’s most trusted servants, we did not know if we could trust them.”
“I can understand that.”
“And you were there, not only to protect them from attack, but to protect them from thinking. When a Neapolitan thinks, he thinks treason. If they had stopped, or not taken the right road, you would have helped them to guide their unruly animals.”
“Of course,” he said; “but I did not know what we were doing, or where we were going, or——”
“You were under the orders of the priest. He was a real priest.”
“Oh, I had guessed that. No one else could have remembered all there was to do with the candles, chanting and halting for this or that. But, I say, Rusidda?”