“Well, let’s hope that they don’t find out anything about it,” I replied, to change the subject. Then taking Roderick by the hand I led him to where Maqueda stood a yard or two apart, listening to our talk, but, of course, understanding very little of it, and introduced him to her, explaining in a few words the wonderful thing that had happened. She welcomed him very kindly, and congratulated me upon my son’s escape. Meanwhile, Roderick had been staring at her with evident admiration. Now he turned to us and said in his quaint broken English:
“Walda Nagasta most lovely woman! No wonder King Solomon love her mother. If Barung’s daughter, my wife, had been like her, think I run through great river into rising sun with Fung.”
Oliver instantly translated this remark, which made us all laugh, including Maqueda herself, and very grateful we were to find the opportunity for a little innocent merriment upon that tragic night.
By this time the regiment was ready to start, and had formed up into companies. Before the march actually began, however, the officer of the Abati patrol, in whose charge Roderick had been brought to us, demanded his surrender that he might deliver his prisoner to the Commander-in-Chief, Prince Joshua. Of course, this was refused, whereon the man asked roughly:
“By whose order?”
As it happened, Maqueda, of whose presence he was not aware, heard him, and acting on some impulse, came forward, and unveiled.
“By mine,” she said. “Know that the Child of Kings rules the Abati, not the Prince Joshua, and that prisoners taken by her soldiers are hers, not his. Be gone back to your post!”
The captain stared, saluted, and went with his companions, not to the pass, indeed, as he had been ordered, but to Joshua. To him he reported the arrival of the Gentile’s son, and the news he brought that the nation of the Fung, dismayed by the destruction of their god, were in full flight from the plains of Harmac, purposing to cross the great river and to return no more.
This glad tidings spread like wildfire; so fast, indeed, that almost before we had begun our march, we heard the shouts of exultation with which it was received by the terrified mob gathered in the great square. The cloud of terror was suddenly lifted from them. They went mad in their delight; they lit bonfires, they drank, they feasted, they embraced each other and boasted of their bravery that had caused the mighty nation of the Fung to flee away for ever.
Meanwhile, our advance had begun, nor in the midst of the general jubilation was any particular notice taken of us till we were in the middle of the square of Mur and within half a mile of the palace, when we saw by the moonlight that a large body of troops, two or three thousand of them, were drawn up in front of us, apparently to bar our way. Still we went on till a number of officers rode up, and addressing the commander of the regiment of Mountaineers, demanded to know why he had left his post, and whither he went.