No one interfered with their actions so far. They were free to walk, drive, or ride about the extensive city, provided some of their bodyguard went with them. They could go out hunting, with the same escort, sail on the lake, and view the land as far as it could be viewed between sunrise and sunset. But they were expected to be within the city walls when the gates were closed. Only in this sense were they treated as captives.
Ned and his followers did not find the life they led at all irksome. It might become so in time, but they had no intention of staying here much longer. The queen was on her way home to her capital; when she returned they would either get permission to go, or else take French leave.
Meantime they were having pretty much the same kind of time as blue-jackets have when they get ashore in a foreign port. They were the heroes of the hour, and were made welcome everywhere, except to the temple. From that sacred portal they were most rigidly excluded.
Tutors were provided to teach them the language of the higher classes, so that they might be able to converse with her majesty when she arrived. She had heard about their advent, and these were her orders, sent by special messengers. Like President Kruger, no other language but her own people’s was permitted at court. Our heroes made rapid progress in their studies. While the country was swamped, and the hot rains made the cool interiors of these the most pleasant places to pass the time, they had spent their spare time with the teachers, listening to their explanations, and mastering the meaning and sounds of their vocabulary. The Matabeles and Basutos, also, were apt pupils in the oral part of the instructions. As soon as they could make themselves understood, however, they discarded the male teachers, and took the rest of their instructions from their amazon guards. Ned, Fred, and Clarence went further. They practised the letter-writing, which was like shorthand, to the ordinary hieroglyphic carvings on the walls, and only practised by the educated class. They also asked many questions respecting the history, myths, and habits of the people they were amongst. In this way, and by keeping their eyes and ears open, they acquired a vast amount of knowledge in a short space of time.
The Karnadamains were a remnant of the older race, who had fled from Egypt at the time of the invasion of the Shepherd Kings. Like the Israelites, they had wandered far and encountered many vicissitudes before settling down on this remote and central portion of Africa. The history of their wanderings and early rulers was comprised largely, like that of the Greeks, of legend and myth.
They still retained the principal features of their ancient religions—that of animal-worship. The serpent, the crocodile, the cat, ibis, and other animals of certain kinds were considered sacred, and rigidly protected. To kill one of these marked animals, either wantonly or accidentally, was a sacrilege, the punishment for which was death. When our heroes learnt this, and remembered their indiscriminate slaughter of the pythons, they felt themselves in a mighty perilous position should any of their friends, the amazons, betray them. Ned took an early opportunity of sounding Captain Pylea on the subject. She, however, laughingly reassured him, and told him to be under no apprehension. Her subordinates were soldiers, not informers; while, as for the slaves who had removed the carcases, they had been slaughtered to a man, so that they might not speak of what they had seen.
“It was a terrible crime you committed,” she added, with a shudder; “for these were of the most sacred order, who are fed with slaves. But enough were left to swallow up the remains of their brethren and those who might have spoken about it, and we did not see you do the unholy deed.”
Ned shuddered to hear the calmness with which she told this atrocity, grateful although he was for her and her comrades’ kindness to them. She was a frank, generous, and courageous young woman, but she had not much womanly mercy in her composition.
“What would you have done, Pylea, if you had been attacked by those sacred—monsters?” he enquired.
She looked at him with a humorous twinkle in her dark eyes, and touched her bow and spear.