“No, I shall not go, and there will be no payment,” he retorted in his own speech. “And you must hear me, for now I, and not he, shall be the master here.”
Beta sprang from the bed and faced him.
“Go, or I shoot you down like a dog!” she threatened.
He sneered.
“There will be no shooting,” he answered coolly. “But there will be speech for you to hear. Now listen! This is what ye brought us here to? The man and you? This? To death and woe? To accidents and perishings?
“Ye brought us to hardship and to battle, not to peace! With lies, deceptions and false promises ye enticed us! We were safe and happy in our homes in the Abyss beside the sunless sea, till ye fell thither in your air-boat from these cursed regions. We--”
“For this speech ye shall surely die when the master comes!” cried she. “This is treason, and the penalty of it is death!”
He continued, paying no heed:
“We had no need of you, your ways, or your place. But the man Allan would rule or he would ruin. He overthrew and killed our chief, the great Kamrou himself--Kamrou the Terrible! To us he brought dissensions. From us he bore the patriarch away and slew him, and then made us a great falsehood in that matter.
“So he enticed us all. And ye behold the great disaster and the death! The man Allan has deserted us all to perish here. Coward in his heart, he has abandoned you as well! Gone once more to safety and ease, below in the Abyss, there to rule the rest of the Folk, there to take wives according to our law, while we die here!”