“Oh, this, father. When we had eaten the marriage feast, but before we pass before priest, suddenly we hear a thunder and see a pillar of fire shoot up into sky, and sitting on top of it head of Harmac, which vanish into heaven and stop there. Then everybody jump up and say:
“‘Magic of white man! Magic of white man! White man kill the god who sit there from beginning of world, now day of Fung finished according to prophecy. Run away, people of Fung, run away!’
“Barung the Sultan tear his clothes too, and say—‘Run away, Fung,’ and my half-wife, she tear her clothes and say nothing, but run like antelope. So they all run toward east, where great river is, and leave me alone. Then I get up and run too—toward west, for I know from Black Windows,” and he pointed to Higgs, “when we shut up together in belly of god before he let down to lions, what all this game mean, and therefore not frightened. Well, I run, meeting no one in night, till I come to pass, run up it, and find guards, to whom I tell story, so they not kill me, but let me through, and at last I come here, quite safe, without Fung wife, thank God, and that end of tale.”
“I am afraid you are wrong there, my boy,” I said, “out of the frying-pan into the fire, that’s all.”
“Out of frying-pan into fire,” he repeated. “Not understand; father must remember I only little fellow when Khalifa’s people take me, and since then speak no English till I meet Black Windows. Only he give me Bible-book that he have in pocket when he go down to be eat by lions.” (Here Higgs blushed, for no one ever suspected him, a severe critic of all religions, of carrying a Bible in his pocket, and muttered something about “ancient customs of the Hebrews.”)
“Well,” went on Roderick, “read that book ever since, and, as you see, all my English come back.”
“The question is,” said Higgs, evidently in haste to talk of something else, “will the Fung come back?”
“Oh! Black Windows, don’t know, can’t say. Think not. Their prophecy was that Harmac move to Mur, but when they see his head jump into sky and stop there, they run every man toward the sunrise, and I think go on running.”
“But Harmac has come to Mur, Roderick,” I said; “at least his head has fallen on to the cliff that overlooks the city.”
“Oh! my father,” he answered, “then that make great difference. When Fung find out that head of Harmac has come here, no doubt they come after him, for head his most holy bit, especially as they want hang all the Abati whom they not like.”