"Excellently, but I am far from being a perfect savage. It doesn't seem possible that I shall ever learn how to fall gracefully into that ring. I believe I shall insist that you turn your head at the particular juncture, for I know you'll laugh at me," she said with a great show of concern.
"I don't like that part of the service. It's a shame for me to stand by and to see you tumble at my feet. Firstly, it's not your place; secondly, it's liable to hurt you; lastly, I'd feel a most unmanly brute. Wonder if we can't modify that part of it somehow?"
"I might be carried in on a litter and set down in the ring, or we might stretch a hammock," she said, laughing merrily.
"I'm determined on one point and that is in regard to the pile of soft grass. Pootoo promised to cut a lot of it and put it in the ring. You shan't break any bones if I can help it."
"Pootoo is to be master of ceremonies in every sense of the word, I can see. I am the ward of a king."
At last the day arrived.
They were to enter the ceremonial temple at high noon and in their ears were to be the sound of timbrels and brass, trumpets and drums and the glad though raucous songs of a kingdom.
Early in the day Tennys Huntingford submitted herself to be arrayed for the ceremony by her proud, jealous maidens. She remained alone and obscure in her chamber, awaiting the moment when King Pootoo should come for her. Her gown was of the purest white. It was her own handiwork, the loving labor of months. True, it would have looked odd in St. James or in the cathedral, but no bride ever walked to those chancels in more becoming raiment--no bride was ever more beautiful, no woman ever more to be coveted. Her heart was singing with love and joy; the dreams of months were coming true in these strangely wakeful hours.
Ridgeway wandered nervously through the village, watching the sun as it crept nearer and nearer to the middle of its daily reign--would the minutes never end? Why had the sun stopped in its course across the sky? Why was time so tantalizing?
At last! The sudden clangor of weird instruments filled his ears. He held his hand to his throbbing heart as he turned his gaze toward the door through which she was to come.