“I knew the whole story two or three weeks before you got permission to leave your forest and come to investigate; I wasn’t allowed to tell.”
“Weren’t allowed. Who in thunder—”
“Tsiang Samdup came down from the Ahbor Valley and in this room, sitting on that hearthrug where the dog lies now, told me the story. I remember how he began—his exact words:
“ ‘My daughter, there is danger in another’s duty. There is also duty in another’s danger. There is merit in considered speech, but strength consists in silence. Truth, that may be told to one, may lead to evil if repeated. I am minded to speak to your ears only.’
“Offhand I told him I would of course respect his confidence, but he sat still for about half an hour before he spoke again. Then he took at least half an hour to commit me to a pledge of secrecy that I could not possibly break without losing my own self-respect. I discovered before he was through that he had been quite right to do that, but I confess there were moments that evening when it looked as if he had trapped me into something against which every moral fiber in me rebelled instinctively. For an hour I hated him. And there have been times—many times since—when it has been extremely difficult to keep the promise. However, I have kept it. It was only yesterday that he gave me leave to tell you as much as I know.”
“He might have confided in me in the first place,” said Ommony, but Hannah Sanburn shook her head.
“I did suggest that to him. I urged it. But he made me see that he was quite right not to. It would have placed you in an impossible position. What had happened was this: the Terrys did succeed in entering the Ahbor Valley. They seemed to have undergone frightful hardships, and nobody knows how they found the way, but they did. They were hunted like animals, and when Tsiang Samdup rescued them Jack Terry was dying from wounds, hunger and exposure; he had managed somehow to find enough food for his wife, and he had persuaded her to eat, and to let him go without.”
“Are you sure of your information?” Ommony asked. “That doesn’t sound like Elsa.”
“There was a baby coming.”
“Oh, my God!”