Naida, however, came to him at once, and in a low voice asked for news from the amphitheatre, and when Kirby answered that the caciques were unanimously in favor of leaving them alone until they starved, she exclaimed:
“Oh, then it is good news!”
After that, however, a shadow of doubt flickered in her great eyes.
“And yet, is it? It means temporary immunity, of coarse. But—starvation!”
Kirby assured her with a grin.
“If we had to starve we might worry. But there is more food here than the Duca thinks. Look!”
From a bulging pocket of his tunic he fished a strip of the roots on which he had subsisted so comfortably. Naida’s eyes widened, and several of the girls gave low cries.
“Yes,” Naida exclaimed, “but such food! Why—why, do you know what you are offering us? Why, this is the sacred Peyote! Only the Duca eats it, and, at rare intervals, his priests.”
Kirby was really startled now.