At the Queen's Mercy

by Mabel Fuller Blodgett

At length a halt was called, and we found ourselves before a temple built, indeed, of stone, but ornamented with carvings of fruit and flowers and strange figures of beasts and birds, covered with a curious lacquer in brilliant tints, red, green, violet, and gold.

Six men received us. They wore short, white tunics, and had shaven crowns bound by silver fillets, and they looked, I thought, with ill-concealed pleasure on the body of the dead ape.

Only a small bodyguard followed Lestrade and myself within the portals of this temple. We were borne along a curious labyrinth of passages all going downward and towards a common centre. A door of iron, heavily barred, was loosened and turned upon its pivot. We were carried within. Here our bonds were struck off by order of the chief with broad shoulders, but contrariwise, a metal girdle was locked about our waists, and this in turn was fastened by a stout but sufficiently long chain to a staple in the wall of our prison chamber.

Then the guards withdrew, and through the bars of the door I saw the leader bind the outer bolts with a small cord. This he sealed with wax, and likewise stamped the seal with a square of the jewelled girdle in such manner that none could enter without having first broken the wax itself. Then he also left us, and Lestrade and I were once more alone.

We turned with one consent, and after we had each spoken somewhat to the other on the marvels of our capture and present escape from death, and had rubbed our arms and legs to a more comfortable complexion, for our bonds had been drawn about us with no light hand, we then took, what was plainly the next thing in order, and examined with due care our forced abiding-place.

The worst thing to be said against it was the darkness, for all light filtered from a distance through slits in the roof. The room was airy enough, however, and cool. The walls were closely overlaid with sticks of bamboo, and the floor was of earth pressed into bricks and colored with some show of art. Two woven sacks were filled to a pleasant thickness with some sweet-smelling leaves, and were each provided with a soft, wide strip of cloth, so that in the matter of beds, these heathen had given us nothing of which to complain.

A long, low settle of heavy black wood was also given over to our use, and this made complete the furnishing of the place.

After some hours of converse, and when darkness had settled like a pall upon the chamber, we heard approaching footsteps, and a lighted torch was thrust through the bars of the upper part of the door and into a socket set for the purpose. Then from the same hand came a wooden platter piled high with steaming meat and plantains, a gourd of water, and three small stone pitchers brimming with palm wine.

The three pitchers, and the fact that the meat was also divided into three portions, puzzled, at the time, both Gaston and myself, but we found afterwards that as I had killed the sacred ape belonging to the service of Hed, I was supposed to be possessed of a devil to whose strength was due this feat.

One portion of all our food was therefore set apart for the use of this same familiar. That I, who am, as I have said, a religious man, should be so thought of, filled me, when I knew the facts, with righteous indignation; but at the time, in my ignorance, I cheerfully abode the insult, and the portion of the evil spirit said to dwell within me was consumed like to the other victuals, with all the zeal and constancy of a hungry man.