“Do you want to go to England?”
“Want!” She gave a sigh, as of longing. “I have wanted ever since I was born.”
“Then you shall go whoever has to stay behind.”
“Stay behind—how do you mean?” She seemed to read in my words a hidden significance. “My father must go. If he stays I stay also.”
“Is he really your father?”
“Of course he is my father. My mother was one of the women of the country. They burned her when I was born.”
“Burned her?”
“As a thank offering for having borne unto the Great Joss a child.”
She spoke in the most matter-of-fact tone. I wondered what sort of place this was I had got into, whether the people hereabouts were men or demons. She went on quietly.
“My father is the Great Joss. It was a great thing to the people that a woman should have borne to him a child.”