Now the señor thought and answered:
“The man would be foolish who hesitated between death and so fair and sweet a bride. Still, this is a matter that I cannot decide alone. What says the Lady Maya?”
“She says,” answered Maya, “that although this is a marriage for which she did not look, and it is a new thing that a daughter of the Heart should take a stranger of less ancient blood to husband, the will of Heaven is her will, and the lord that Heaven chooses for her shall be her lord,”—and she stretched out her hand to the señor.
He took it, and, bending down, kissed her fingers, saying:
“May I be worthy of your choice, Lady.”
Now I thought that the ceremonies were finished, and was glad, for I grew weary of assisting at this farce, but the old priest, Zibalbay’s foster-brother, rose and said:
“One thing more must be done, Brethren, before we leave this Sanctuary, and it is to swear in these strangers as members of the Council. They have wandered here from far, and here with us they must live and die, seeing that both of them know our secrets, and one of them is predestined to become the father of that great lord for whose arising we have looked for many generations, and therefore, until the child is born, he must be watched and guarded as priests watch a sacred fire.”
“Ay! it is well thought of. Let them be sworn, and learn that to break the oath is death,” was the answer.
Then Mattai rose, as Keeper of the Sanctuary, and said:
“You, White Man, Son of the Sea, and you, Ignatio, the Wanderer, a Lord of the Heart, do swear upon the holy symbol of the Heart, the oath to break which is to die horribly in this world and to be lost everlastingly in the worlds that are to be. You swear, setting in pledge your souls and bodies for the fulfilment of the oath, that neither by word nor sign nor deed will you reveal aught of the mysteries or the councils of this Brotherhood, whereof you will be the faithful servants till your deaths, holding it supreme above every power upon earth. You swear that you will not possess yourselves of the treasures of the City of the Heart, nor, without the consent of this high Brotherhood, attempt to leave its gates or to bring any stranger within its walls. These things you swear with your hands upon the altar, setting in pledge your souls and bodies for the fulfilment of the oath.”