“Explain your statement, sir!” cried the High Priestess, quickly recovering herself.
“I will,” he replied. “The explanation is due to all the people, and should have been made before. You will all remember that ere I became a priest I kept the historic Records of our Library, wherein is written on imperishable parchment every incident that transpires in our valley. In reading these records years ago I discovered an important secret. Our former Ama was childless. She had no daughter to succeed her.”
A murmur of astonishment came from the assembled people. The girl facing them never flinched a muscle.
“Fearing she would be condemned and hated for her failure to supply a successor to the long line of hereditary rulers,” continued Katalat, calmly, “the High Priestess secretly took a child of one of her former priestesses into her palace and proclaimed the infant as her own daughter. When she died, some five years ago, the girl who now stands beside me—the fraudulent substitute—took her place, and none suspected the imposture.
“For myself, I had taken an oath to keep silent unless some act of the false Priestess imperiled the welfare of the nation. In protecting these invaders, our natural enemies, and so bringing upon us the wrath of our justly incensed god, the destruction of our city and the death of hundreds of loyal subjects, this girl has indeed released me from my oath. At last you know the truth—that there is no hereditary High Priestess now living to rule over you, and that therefore her power and supremacy devolve upon me, the lawful High Priest of the Sun.”
That last statement impressed me with the belief that the man was lying. So evidently thought Ama. She drew a breath of relief and actually smiled into the stern faces confronting her—a dazzling, brilliant smile that should have won her case then and there.
“You have listened, my subjects, to this false and absurd accusation,” she said. “Now I ask you to demand from Katalat the proofs of his assertion.”
“The proofs have been submitted to the Triumvirate, to the Counselors and to the Waba Pagatka,” was the quiet rejoinder. “In the Book of Records is the signed confession of our last High Priestess and a copy of the oath she obliged me to take.”
One of the aged Triumvir arose from his seat.
“I have seen and examined the Book of Records, and I testify that the statement of the High Priest is true,” said he.