“Bravo, Otter!” cried Leonard; “I knew that you would die hard.”
“Hard did he die indeed, Deliverer,” said Nam with a sigh, “so hard that even now many swear that he was a god and not a man. Scarcely had they all vanished into the pool when a wonder chanced such as has not been told of in our records: Deliverer, the white dawn turned to red, perchance, as I cried to calm the people, because the false gods had met their doom.”
“Then the true ones must be singularly blind,” said Juanna, “seeing that I, whom you dare to call a false god, am still alive.”
This argument silenced Nam for a moment, but presently he answered.
“Yes, Shepherdess, you are still alive,” he said, laying a curious emphasis on the “still.” “And, indeed,” he added hastily, “if you are not foolish you may long remain so, both of you, for I have no desire to shed your blood who only seek to end my last days in peace. But listen to the end of the tale: While the people wondered at the omen of the changed dawn, it was seen that the dwarf, your servant, was not dead there in the pool. Yes! this was seen, Deliverer: to and fro in the troubled waters rushed the great Water Dweller, and after him, keeping pace with him, went that dwarf who was named Otter. Ay, round and round and down to the lowest depths, though how it could be that a man might swim with the Snake none can say.”
“Oh, bravo, Otter!” said Leonard again, bethinking him of an explanation of the mystery which he did not reveal to Nam. “Well, what was the end of it?”
“That none know for certain, Deliverer,” answered the priest perplexedly. “At last the Water Dweller, from whose mouth poured blood, was seen to sink with the dwarf; then he rose again and entered the cave, his home. But whether the dwarf entered with him, or no, I cannot say, for some swear one thing and some another, and in the foam and shadow it was hard to see; moreover, none will venture there to learn the truth.”
“Well, dead or alive, he made a good fight for it,” said Leonard. “And now, Nam, what is your business with us?”
This question appeared to puzzle the priest a little, for, to speak truth, he did not care to disclose the exact nature of his business, which was to separate Leonard from Juanna, without force if possible.
“I came here, Deliverer,” he answered, “to tell you what had happened.”