If I live to a ripe old age, which seems likely though I be now at seventy but little past my prime, I shall, I am sure, never forget the look of rage and triumph upon those dark faces bent above us. We lay, Lestrade and I, bound and helpless on the stone floor of that bloody Council Room.
Agno would fain have played with us awhile, even as a cat with a mouse, for the sheer love of the sport, but the High Priest’s hot-headed followers would have none of it. They clamored for a swift judgment on the culprits, and their wily leader saw their demands had best be satisfied.
So from the throne before the grim and silent images of the gods we had dared, came forth the solemn sentence of our doom.
Lestrade was given over to the worshippers of Hed. A week hence on the high festival day he was to be tied to the horns of the altar, and there done to death. My fate was swifter, but as terrible. Two nights hence the moon would be at its full, and Edba would claim in me her chosen victim.
“Let the stranger,” said Agno, “be bound to the stone that stands in the centre of the cleared space within the holy grove. There has Izab, the Mad Man of the Moon, his abiding-place, and there, unpitied, and alone save for the avenger, shall this dog of an unbeliever meet his doom.”
“What is your meaning?” I began, for I have always held it the wiser part to learn the worst at once; but in the hoarse roar of satisfied revenge that rose from the priests about, my words were lost, and before I could speak again a gag was thrust, none too tenderly, into my mouth. I saw Lestrade wave his fettered hand to me, in parting, and the brave smile on his white lips made my eyes strangely dim.
Four lusty sons of Edba raised me up, and I was borne from the Council Room and carried through a multitude of passages.
At length my bearers stopped; a door opened, a massive door, but so low that a short man must stoop to enter. The foul smell of a noisome dungeon assailed my nostrils. I was thrust within, still fettered, and so rudely that for a little my head swam with the force of the blow I had received in falling, so that I could not note at once the quality of my new prison.
This, alas! I found quite soon enough, matched but too well the state of my changed fortunes. The hole was unfit for a beast, much less for the chamber of a Christian gentleman. Nevertheless, I had been placed there, and it was cold comfort to reflect that I was not long to trespass on the hospitality of my entertainers.
However, it is ill crying over spilt milk, nor am I a man to waste good time in such thankless observance. So I disposed myself upon the damp floor of the dungeon, as well as the painful tightness of my bonds would permit, and by dint of thrusting my swollen tongue this way and that, I at last got rid, to my great joy, of the foul gag that had so unceremoniously stopped my speech.