“Go if you like, Juanna,” said Leonard, not heeding the priest’s importunities. “If anything happens I will try to avenge you before I follow. Go, but forgive me.”
“What have I to forgive?” she said, looking at him with shining eyes. “Did you not once dare a greater danger for me?”
“Yes, go, Shepherdess,” said Soa, who till now had been staring with all her eyes at the three aged men in the centre of the square; “there is little to fear, if this fool of a dwarf will but keep his tongue silent. I know my people, and I tell you that if you sing that song, and say the words which I have taught you, you and the black one here shall be proclaimed gods of the land. But be swift, for the soldiers are about to shoot.”
As Soa spoke, Leonard saw that the conference in the square had come to an end. The messengers were calling commands to the captains, which the captains repeated to the soldiers, and then followed a mighty rattling of quivers. Another instant and the light shone upon many hundreds of arrow-heads, every one of which was pointed towards them.
Juanna saw also, and springing forward on to a rock, stood there for a moment in the full glare of the sun. Instantly a murmur went up from the host; a great voice called a command; the barbs of steel flickered like innumerable stars, and sank downwards.
Now Otter, naked except for his moocha, sprang on to the rock by Juanna’s side, and the murmur of the soldiers of the Great People grew into a hoarse roar of astonishment and dismay. Wonder had turned to fear, though why this multitude of warriors should fear a lovely white girl and a black dwarf was not apparent.
For a moment the ill-assorted pair stood together on the rock; then Juanna leapt to the plain, Otter following her. For twenty yards or so she walked in silence, holding the dwarf by the hand; then suddenly she burst into singing wild and sweet. This was the refrain of the sacred song which she sang in the ancient language of the People of the Mist, the tongue that Soa had taught her as a child:
“I do but sleep.
Have ye wept for me awhile?
Hush! I did but sleep.
I shall awake, my people!
I am not dead, nor can I ever die.
See, I have but slept!
See, I come again, made beautiful!
Have ye not seen me in the faces of the children?
Have ye not heard me in the voices of the children?
Look on me now, the sleeper arisen;
Look on me, who wandered, whose name is the Dawning!
Why have ye mourned me, the sleeper awakened?”
Thus she sang, ever more sweetly and louder, till her voice rang through the still air like the song of a bird in winter. Hushed were the companies of the Great Men as she drew towards them with slow gliding steps—hushed with fear and wonder, as though her presence awoke a memory or fulfilled a promise.
Now she was in front of their foremost rank, and, halting there, was silent for a moment. Then she changed her song.