“Nay, hear me first!” the mullah howled, and his voice was like a wolf's at hunting time. “Hear, and be warned!”
The crowd grew very still, but King saw that some men licked their lips, as if they well knew what was coming.
“These three men came, and one was a new man!” the mullah howled. “The other two were his witnesses! All three swore that the first man came from slaying an unbeliever in the teeth of written law. They said he ran from the law. So, as the custom is, I let all three enter!”
“Good!” said the crowd. “Good!” They might have been five thousand judges, judging in equity, so grave they were. Yet they licked their lips.
“But later, word came to me saying they are liars. So--again as the custom is--I ordered them bound and held!”
“Slay them! Slay them!” the crowd yelped, gleeful as a wolf-pack on a scent and abandoning solemnity as suddenly as it had been assumed. “Slay them!”
They were like the wind, whipping in and out among Khinjan's rocks, savage and then still for a minute, savage and then still.
“Nay, there is a custom yet!” the mullah howled, holding up both arms. And there was silence again like the lull before a hurricane, with only the great black river talking to itself.
“Who speaks for them? Does any speak for them?”
“Speak for them?” said the roof.