Earle settles a Delicate Matter.
The following day was marked by two incidents, namely, a visit to Earle and Dick from the parents of Mishail, the young man who had been injured by being thrown out of his chariot, and the presentation of the two friends to Juda, the King of Ulua, and his granddaughter, the Princess Myrra.
The visit occurred shortly after the friends had finished breakfast, and the visitors were accompanied and introduced by Kedah, the individual who, on the previous day, had begun the task of instructing the two white men in the Uluan tongue.
Kedah introduced the visitors by simply indicating them and pronouncing their names, that of the man whom he introduced first being Hasca, while he named the lady Tua.
Judging by the deference which Kedah displayed toward them the visitors were people of high degree; an inference which was borne out in the first instance by the stately dignity of their manner and the richness of their garb, and afterwards by the sumptuousness of their abode, which was almost palatial in its spaciousness and the magnificence of its furnishing. Hasca was, in fact, one of the most powerful and influential nobles of Ulua, and the acquaintance which began with this visit was destined to have important results.
Hasca was a very fine specimen of Uluan manhood, some forty years of age, standing about five feet ten inches in his sandals, of swarthy complexion, with coal-black hair, beard and eyes, the latter very keen and piercing. There was a distinct touch of hauteur in his manner to Kedah; but to Dick he and his wife were friendliness itself, while to Earle they showed that deep reverence which seemed to be the invariable rule with the Uluans.
The lady Tua seemed to be some five years younger than her husband, dark, and decidedly handsome, but, like all the Uluan women of mature age, she displayed a distinct tendency to become stout.
Kedah undertook the task of explaining to his two pupils the object of the visit, and to do the old gentleman justice, he succeeded fairly well, considering the difficulties which confronted him. He talked a good deal, but speech, of itself, naturally did not count for much. He supplemented his words, however, with such a wonderful wealth of gesture, accent and tone, that the two white men found it by no means difficult to guess the general drift of his speech, especially as he adopted the novel method of further elucidating his meaning by a number of amazingly clever sketches produced upon a kind of papyrus, with the aid of a very fine brush and a small bottle of some kind of ink, which he had taken the precaution to bring with him.
With these aids, then, he managed to make Earle and Dick understand that the visit was, first, one of thanks for the assistance rendered to the unfortunate Mishail on the preceding day, and next, a request that one, or both, would be so very obliging as to visit the patient, who was either very ill, or suffering much pain—they could not quite make out which was meant—and see what could be done for him.
To this request the comrades at once willingly assented, the more readily because, having, by a piece of extraordinarily good luck, obtained entrance to what they understood was, to all intents and purposes, a forbidden city, so far as outsiders were concerned, it was now good policy on their part to establish the best possible relations with its people. Accordingly, Earle routed out his medicine case and, tucking it under his arm, signified his readiness to go at once.