"What—" I demanded. But we were in the pavilion now, with the jam of watching people pressing us.
"You will wait here, Kent?" Nereid murmured. "I will ask Jenten-Shah of my father."
I drew back behind a palm on which great orchid-like flowers were growing. I could see the dais where the gay fatuous ruler was seated with food and drink before him, with his young women favorites around him as they watched the platform where a barbarically voluptuous woman in flame-colored drapes was dancing with colored light-beams upon her.
I had a glimpse of Nereid importuning Jenten-Shah. It was brief; and then Nereid came back to me.
"Father is not here, Kent. He told the King not to hold this festival tonight."
"Did you mention that imbecile worker?"
She nodded. Her face was grim, frightened now. "He said, if any imbecile causes trouble there will be a hundred imbeciles killed as punishment. He is drunk with marite. He laughed at the idea that Tollgamo would dare attack."
Merrymaking on the brink of disaster and death.
As though both Nereid and I were fascinated now, for a time we stood in the pavilion corner, watching the colorful scene. Half the people here were robed and masked, waiting a later time when a bell would give the signal for the unmasking. I saw several of the white-robed girls—the Untouchables. Then one of them, with a golden star on her breast, like Nereid's but without the crescent moons, came and joined us. Nereid had met her a while ago near the Ruler's dais. Her name was Venta. Under Nereid, she was commanding the little group of protesting Virgins.