At this many of the people rent their garments and trampled them under foot as they cried, "So may our enemies trample us under foot if we fall into transgression."
Moroni reminded them that was what would probably happen. Then he launched into speech while the populace hung spell-bound on every word. The vast concourse stood silent while his utterance rang out. Never had such a eulogy been paid to liberty, never such a tribute to their God. In glowing words he pictured what they had endured for their religion, what they had suffered in the recent wars for their freedom. Scarcely one in that vast multitude but what had sacrificed for both. As the orator ended with the appeal, "Will you who have so bitterly resented the Lamanitsh yoke bend the knee to a Nephite king?" an ominous shout arose and he knew that the populace was with him. General Moroni was still the idol of the people and Amalickiah stood impugned.
As the speaker, sucked of his strength, turned to descend, someone plucked at his arm. He recognized the big servant of Zorabel who delivered the message.
"My mistress would speak with you. She begs that you will come to her."
"Tell your mistress Zorabel that I shall come, but not yet."
With that he dismissed the messenger and made his way to the barracks where there was much that demanded the attention of the commander-in-chief for the rest of the afternoon.
It was evening when he at last made his way toward the house of Zorabel. In her apartment the oil already flamed in its brazen cruet. So vast was the room that the light did not penetrate to its further corners, but it served to illumine its magnificence. The walls were carved in grotesque designs brilliantly colored. Prominent among the engravings was the winged serpent of Moroni, and by its side the leopard of Amalickiah. On the floor, over the couches, at the door, were displayed richest blankets of heaviest woof and rainbow hue. Nor were there lacking evidences of the personality of Moroni, for his gifts were placed with loving care. On an alabaster stand lay a book of papyrus filled with picture writing in colored inks, depicting the scenes of the conflicts Moroni had taken part in. Against the wall stood a buckskin shield won from a famous Lamanite chief. Her own divan was graced by the skin of an ocelot that Moroni had brought from one of his foraying expeditions.
Another woman would have paled in such gorgeous surroundings, but Zorabel dominated the whole. In crimson robes, the wealth of her raven hair bound in fillets of gold, she was the throbbing heart of the scene. Her own heart beat unevenly beneath the white bosom which was circled with a necklace of jade. She had placed the bangles there wondering if his man's brain would remember under what circumstances he had given them to her. She had neglected no detail that night that would help in the desperate enterprise on which she was bound.
There was a tread in the corridor and Moroni stood in the doorway. As she looked at him all her reproaches for his tardiness died on her lips and her woman's tenderness gushed forth.
"You are ill."