They had begun to hurry me toward the king’s house when a roar of dismay broke from the group we had just left. I turned half around and saw that the automobile had made a short circle and was plunging straight at the king and his warriors. Some were wise enough to scatter from its path, but the more dignified hesitated and were bowled over like a company of wooden soldiers and tossed in every direction.
The lightness of the machine prevented many serious casualties, however, and while Duncan chased them here and there, managing the huge automobile with consummate skill, the warriors gathered up the stunned and maimed and, dodging the onslaught as nimbly as they could, fled into the palace and houses where the terrible monster could not follow them.
Forgetting for the moment my own unenviable plight, I laughed heartily at the exhibition until the two chiefs pushed me roughly toward a doorway and so along the narrow hall and into the big courtyard.
Here the chiefs began to gather, muttering angrily at their recent discomfiture and casting upon me glances of such malignity that they had the effect of sobering me effectually.
The king came limping in and dropped upon his bench with a brow like a thundercloud. He had not been much injured, but his royal dignity had suffered a severe blow.
While one man held the loose end of my lasso and guarded me, the others all ranged themselves back of the king, who said, with what appeared to me to be unseemly haste:
“What shall be the fate of the white stranger?”
“Death!” they cried, in a fierce chorus.
“And at once,” added Nalig-Nad. He glanced around him. “To you, Tetch-Tsa, I allow the privilege.”
A stout young fellow with considerable of the royal green in his robe stepped forward with a grim smile and drew his long knife. As I looked at him I clutched with my fingers the handles of the two self-cocking revolvers that were fortunately in my jacket pockets, and which I had been secretly holding when the coil of the lasso settled over me. I was not able to move my arms because of the thong that pressed them against my body, but I pointed the barrel of the right hand weapon as accurately as I could toward my proposed executioner. When he was but a few paces off I blazed away at him.