“This situation confronts me,” said Orondo, with agitation.
“Unmask thy feeling. I am not fully in confidence. Thou bemoanest the mandate to wed a native, yet affirm thy inner soul bespeaks its mate,” replied Yermah, shaking his head and looking perplexed.
“She whom I adore is the high-priestess of the Monbas,” said Orondo, scarcely above a whisper.
Yermah dropped into his seat as if he had been shot, and put his hands before his face as if to ward off a blow. Orondo, too much wrought up to detect feeling in another, asked eagerly:
“Thou wilt grant me permission to woo her, and if I win, wilt bless our union?”
“My vow to the Brotherhood forbids any other course. Go, go now, with my blessing, Orondo,” Yermah managed to say.
“May the Master of the Radiance shower thee richly,” murmured his auditor, as he stumblingly found his way out.
Yermah sat like a man stunned. For the first time in his life he drank deeply and long at the fountain of pain.
Orondo walked like one in a dream. He was in an exalted frame of mind, and seemed to be carried on the wings of the wind toward the house occupied by Rahula. He had won his first victory. He had permission from his civil chief. Now he would consult the unseen forces; then, he would learn his fate from the lips of his beloved. Hope was holding high carnival, and singing a merry tune in his ear, as he approached the door of the “Divination Room,” in the center of the square building.
“An humble applicant stands at thy door, Rahula,” called Orondo; “one who begs that thou wilt open to him the secrets of his destiny.”