“What do you wish to do then, Peter?” asked Leonard.
“We wish to return whence we came, Deliverer. Already we have nearly earned the money that you gave to us before we started, and we will take no more pay if we must win it by crossing yonder wall.”
“The way back is far, Peter,” answered Leonard, “and you know its perils. How many, think you, will reach their homes alive if I am not there to guide them? For know, Peter, I will not turn back now. Desert me, if you wish, all of you, and still I will enter this country alone, or with Otter only. Alone we took the slave camp and alone we will visit the People of the Mist.”
“Your words are true, Deliverer,” said Peter, “the homeward way is far and its perils are many; mayhap but very few of us will live to see their huts again, for this is an ill-fated journey. But if we pass yonder,” and he pointed to the wall of rock, “then we shall all of us certainly die, and be offered to a devil by devils.”
Leonard pulled his beard thoughtfully and said: “It seems there is nothing else to say, Peter, except good-bye.”
The headman saluted and was turning away with an abashed countenance when Juanna stopped him. Together with Otter and the others she had been listening to the colloquy in silence, and now spoke for the first time.
“Peter,” she said gently, “when you and your companions were in the hands of the Yellow Devil and about to be sold as slaves, who was it that rescued you?”
“The Deliverer, Shepherdess.”
“Yes. And now do my ears betray me, or do I hear you say that you and your brethren, who with many another were saved from shame and toil by the Deliverer, are about to leave him in his hour of danger?”
“You have heard aright, Shepherdess,” the man answered sadly.