“Are you contented? Have you any request to make?”
“One, your Highness,” ventured Paul, earnestly.
“Speak, then.”
“Your god,” said he, “is not the God of our fathers. We do not wish to be sacrificed to a strange god. Coming as friends and without evil intent to your country, we have been deprived of our liberty and consecrated to a god we do not worship. The action of the Tcha has been unjust and unkind. We desire to be set free and allowed to return to our own people.”
Ama seemed disturbed by this statement. She sat up again, resting an elbow upon her knee and her chin upon the palm of her hand, listening carefully.
“Alas,” she said in reply, “your protest comes all too late. The decree has passed the Tribunal. The High Priest has accepted you as worthy sacrifices. Already are you consecrated to the Divine Sun, whose majesty would be outraged if robbed of his offerings.”
“Haven’t we anything to say about our own fate?” I asked indignantly.
“Oh, no, indeed!” she responded, smiling bewitchingly. “When one breaks the laws of a country he loses his individual right to direct his fate. Is it not so in the land from whence you came?”
“How are outsiders to know your laws, when you seclude yourselves from all the rest of mankind?” inquired Joe.
“If we seclude ourselves, it is evidence we do not desire intrusion,” she answered.