"Think!" said Umballa.
"I have thought. Let us have no more of this cat-and-mouse play. I refuse to marry you. I'd much prefer any beggar in the street. There is nothing more to be said."
"There are worse things than marriage."
"What manner of indignities have you arranged for me?" Her voice was firm, but the veins in her throat beat so hardily that they stifled her.
Said the spokesman of the council: "We have found a precedent. We find that one hundred and ninety years ago a like case confused the council of that day. They finally agreed that she must submit to two ordeals with wild beasts of the jungle. If she survived she was to be permitted to rule without hindrance. It would be a matter for the gods to decide."
"Are you really human beings?" asked Kathlyn, her lips dry. "Can you possibly commit such a dreadful crime against one who has never harmed you, who asks for nothing but the freedom to leave this country?"
Pundita secretly caught Kathlyn's hand and pressed it.
"Once more!" said Umballa, his compassion touched for the first time. But he had gone too far; for the safety of his own head he must go on.
"I am ready!"
The four men salaamed gravely. They turned, the flowing yellow robes of the council fluttering in the wind, the sun lighting with green and red fires the hilt of Umballa's sword. Not one of them but would have emptied his private coffers to undo what he had done. It was too late. Already a priest had announced the ordeals to the swarming populace. You feed a tiger to pacify him; you give a populace a spectacle.