"When the fair Ahah comes to preside over our household then may I have to run home heavy laden."
"If your white faced master be not so slow that he lets Hagoth the Lamanite walk off with her before his eyes, I could tell him things—"
"A Lamanite," laughed Sara derisively. "Ahah is not particular in her taste. But then, poor girl, she cannot help it, it is in her blood"—Sara stopped short, for along the street, ringing with startling distinctness arose the cry, "Cezoram, son of Cezoram, the chief judge, is dead."
For a moment there was absolute stillness, then wild clamor broke forth. Rumor, with her thousand tongues told that Cezoram, chief judge of all the Nephites, had not risen that morning and when an attendant went to wake him he found him lying naturally in his bed—dead. He had been struck upon the head as he slept, by an assassin who had come and gone as stealthily as the night air.
"Who killed him?" inquired Abish plucking at the arm of a man who passed with broad strides, muttering in his beard.
"Who should it be but the Gadiantons, a handful of robbers, the mention of whose very name blanches the faces of the people and shakes the government. The Nephite officials are in secret league with them else we would not be so terrorized. Two chief judges slain within a year: Cezoram the elder struck down as he sat upon the judgment seat; his son and successor most foully murdered in his room! Is there no end to our endurance?"
"The Gadiantons!" Bursting with her news Abish caught up her half-filled jars and hurried out through some deserted gardens that she might more quickly arrive home. As she picked her way through some overgrown vines she stopped suddenly. Her eye had caught sight of a familiar crest. Across the open space was the stalwart figure of Hagoth clothed in the tiger skin, his badge of knighthood. By his side in flaunting red petticoat walked a Lamanite girl. At the edge of the woods he returned the basket he had been carrying and the head of the plumed chief bent low over her.
"Hagoth making love to an Indian; I wonder what Ahah will say?"
Later she heard what her mistress had to say, and the servant's tale lost nothing in the telling of it.