For better comprehension of this tale, I will now briefly set forth the substance of their strange faith.
Lah and her subjects worshipped chiefly, and with dread, two singular powers: Hed, the serpent god whose spirit dwelt in the body of a monstrous python, called the holy Snake; and Edba, the moon goddess.
Hed gave victory in battle, revenge over enemies, success in various undertakings. Edba gave the crops and increase to the people.
Hed was worshipped by bloody sacrifices; Edba, by offerings of fruit and flowers, save on the great yearly feast, when she, too, demanded that a human life be poured forth before her altar.
Hed was the god of fear; Edba, the goddess of love. Once every twelve months, a maiden, fair and without blemish, became the bride of the Snake. That is, with songs and rejoicing, the rose-crowned victim was thrown to the python, and crushed to death in the reptile’s horrid folds, in the presence of a frenzied multitude.
Two years before our coming a King had ruled with a heavy hand the people of the Walled City. Unlike his royal predecessors, he had made war upon the neighboring country, and he had brought home vast treasure and many slaves, so that the High Priest dared not lift his voice against the practice. To leave the City on any pretext whatsoever was a thing forbidden alike to the Ruler and his people; a thing unheard of for generations, and a thing accursed by Hed. But the King brooked no restraint; the masses were drunk with their new-found liberty, and Agno’s maledictions were looked upon as little more than the impotent murmurings of a feeble old man.
Then one day the King returned with a captive, none knew from whence, a woman who despised the customs of the people, the beauty of whose unveiled face made glad like wine the heart of him who beheld it. Her, the King married; one month from that day he died, suddenly, at a banquet, and Lah, upheld by the High Priest, had seized the sceptre.
No woman had ever sat before upon the throne, and the people and army rebelled, the priests alone remaining faithful to their new sovereign.
But Lah faced the rising storm with calm authority. She appealed to an ancient test almost forgotten. She became, by her own wish, the bride of the Snake, and before the very eyes of her wondering subjects, she came forth from the pit, not only alive, but unhurt.
From that moment she became a sacred person. The chief ringleaders of the revolt were cruelly butchered by their quondam followers, and Lah was Queen indeed.