“Look here, young lady,” I replied with irritation, “doesn’t it occur to you that I may be afraid lest you should die—and I be hanged for it,” I added by an afterthought.
“Oh! I see,” she answered, “that is really very nice of you. But, of course, you would think like that; it is your nature.”
“Yes,” I replied. “Nature, not merit.”
She went to a cupboard which formed the bottom of one of the mahogany museum cases, and extracted from it first of all a bowl of ancient appearance made of some black stone with projecting knobs for handles that were carved with the heads of women wearing ceremonial wigs; and next a low tripod of ebony or some other black wood. I looked at these articles and recognized them. They had stood in front of the sanctuary in the temple in Kendah Land, and over them I had once seen this very woman dressed as she was to-night, bend her head in the magic smoke before she had uttered the prophecy of the passing of the Kendah god.
“So you brought these away too,” I said.
“Yes,” she replied with solemnity, “that they might be ready at the appointed hour when we needed them.”
Then she spoke no more for a while, but busied herself with certain rather eerie preparations. First she set the tripod and its bowl in an open space which I was glad to note was at some distance from the fire, since if either of us fell into that who would there be to take us off before cremation ensued? Then she drew up a curved settee with a back and arms, a comfortable-looking article having a seat that sloped backwards like those in clubs, and motioned to me to sit down. This I did with much the same sensations that are evoked by taking one’s place upon an operation-table.
Next she brought that accursed Taduki box, I mean the inner silver one, the contents of which I heartily wished I had thrown upon the fire, and set it down, open, near the tripod. Lastly she lifted some glowing embers of wood from the grate with tongs, and dropped them into the stone bowl.
“I think that’s all. Now for the great adventure,” she said in a voice that was at once rapt and dreamy.
“What am I to do?” I asked feebly.