At the king’s command a crowd of officious guards dashed forward, and with the hardened copper blades of their spears quickly severed Inaguy’s bonds, whereupon the latter strode forward and, puffed up with pride at again being made the mouthpiece of a god, stood before the grovelling figure of Jiravai, haughtily awaiting the moment when it should please his Majesty to rise and receive Anamac’s message. And presently the king, realising perhaps that his grovelling was not doing any good, rose to his feet, and the message was duly delivered.
“It is well,” returned Jiravai. “It must be as the Great Anamac pleases. Yet, say to him, good Inaguy, that if I have erred, it was through ignorance. To-day is his festival, and when the news was brought to me that two white men had been taken alive in my country, I rejoiced, and bade them and their followers be brought hither; for I thought that to sacrifice them upon the altar would be pleasing to him; while as for you and those with you, it was a great opportunity for— But it is as our great Lord Anamac pleases. And now, I would fain know what is his will toward the white men and you, their followers.”
Facing round, Inaguy shouted to the idol, repeating the words of the king’s apology. Whereupon the idol graciously replied:
“It is well. I know that the Mangeromas have erred through ignorance, therefore I forgive them. But it must never be permitted to happen again, for I do not forgive twice. There must be no more human sacrifices offered to me; nor must the Mangeromas ever again eat men; for both are offences in my sight. And touching these white men and their servants, it is my will that the king and his people shall make them welcome in Mangeroma, treating them as honoured guests and doing all things to help them; so shall the Mangeromas derive great profit and happiness from their visit. I have spoken.”
This message Inaguy repeated in the tongue commonly used among the Mangeromas, shouting it in tones which were distinctly audible all over the square, and for some distance beyond it.
“It is good,” answered the king. “Say to our Lord Anamac that his will shall be obeyed in all things, and the white men, ay, and ye, too, his servants, are henceforth my brothers, the sons of my father’s house.” Then, turning to the armed guards, he added, pointing to the eight figures still bound to the stakes:
“Release those men and take them to my guest house until my white brother with the black hair shall be pleased to express his wishes concerning them. As for my brothers, the white men”—he turned to the chiefs immediately about him—“make ye room for them that they may sit, the one on my right hand and the other on my left.”
These orders having been carried out, Jiravai appeared to be somewhat at a loss what to do next. For to-day was the annual festival of the Great God Anamac, and an elaborate programme of proceedings had been prepared, the chief items of which had been the offering up of the white men as a sacrifice to the god, and the torturing to death of the white men’s followers, to which festivity all the people of note throughout Mangeroma had been invited; and now, by the omission of these two “star” turns, so to speak, the whole affair was likely to fall woefully flat. In his perplexity, the king faced round toward the array of priests on the left side of the open space and, addressing the chief of them, said:
“Since the offering of human sacrifices is displeasing to our Lord Anamac, say now, O Macoma, in what other manner shall we fittingly and acceptably do honour to him on this day which is especially dedicated to his service?”
But Macoma, the chief of the priests, was in no humour just then to help his illustrious master out of a difficulty. He was an exceedingly proud and haughty man, the greatest man in Mangeroma, next to King Jiravai himself, and he felt slighted and humiliated to an intolerable extent that, before all that vast assemblage, consisting of the pick of the Mangeroma nation, Anamac should have absolutely ignored him, the chief priest, and have chosen instead to make his wishes known by the mouth of an obscure stranger, coming from heaven only knew where. Therefore, in response to the king’s question, he rose to his feet and said: