“What are officers without an army?”
“And have you not me, your uncle, your affianced, your lover?” and he laid his hand where he conceived his heart to be, and stared up at her with his rolling, fish-like eyes. “Had it not been for the interference of these Gentiles, in whom you seem to put such trust,” he went on, “should I not have taken Barung captive the other day, and left the Fung without a head?”
“And the Abati without such shreds of honour as still belong to them, my uncle.”
“Let us be wed, O Bud of the Rose, O Flower of Mur, and soon I will free you from the Fung. We are helpless because we are separate, but together we shall triumph. Say, O Maqueda, when shall we be wed?”
“When the idol Harmac is utterly destroyed, and the Fung have departed for ever, my uncle,” she answered impatiently. “But is this a time to talk of marriage? I declare the Council closed. Let the priests bring the rolls that these strangers from the West may take the oath, and then pardon me if I leave you.”
Now from behind the throne there appeared a gorgeous gentleman arrayed in a head-dress that reminded me faintly of a bishop’s mitre, and wearing over his robes a breastplate of precious stones roughly polished, which was half hidden by a very long white beard.
This person, who it seemed was the high priest, carried in his hand a double roll of parchment written over with characters which we afterwards discovered were bastard Hebrew, very ancient and only decipherable by three or four of the Abati, if indeed any of them could really read it. At least it was said to be the roll of the law brought by their forefathers centuries ago from Abyssinia, together with Sheba’s ring and a few other relics, among them the cradle (a palpable forgery), in which the child of Solomon and Maqueda, or Belchis, the first known Queen of Sheba, was traditionally reported to have been rocked. This roll of the law, which for generations had been used at all important ceremonies among the Abati, such as the swearing-in of their queens and chief officers, was now tendered to us to hold and kiss while we took the oath of obedience and allegiance in the names of Jehovah and of Solomon (a strange mixture, it struck us), solemnly vowing to perform those things which I have already set out.
“This seems a pretty wide promise,” said Oliver, after it had been read to us and translated by me to Quick. “Do you think that we ought to take it on?”
I answered “Yes,” that was from my point of view, since otherwise I saw no chance of achieving the object that had caused me to enter upon this adventure. Then, being especially requested to do so, the Sergeant, after reflecting awhile, gave his considered opinion.
“Sir,” he said to Orme, “we are three white men here consorting with a mob of quarter-bred African Jews and one real lady. It seems to me that we had best swear anything they want us to, trusting to the lady to see us through the mess, since otherwise we shall be mere filibusters in the country without official rank, and liable therefore to be shot on sight by the enemy, or any mutineers who get the upper hand here. Also, we have the Professor and the Doctor’s son to think of. Therefore I say: Swear to anything in reason, reserving allegiance to the Crown of Great Britain, and trust to luck. You see, Captain, we are in their power anyway, and this oath may help, but can’t hurt us, while to refuse it must give offence to all these skunks, and perhaps to the lady also, which is of more consequence.”