His sudden confirmation of my surmise concerning Lentala choked the words in my throat.
“Why don’t you speak?” he roughly demanded. “Is it not true?”
I could only gaze at him.
“The white blood finds and knows its own,” he went on. “Two hundred and fifty of those with white blood are held on this island by a great horde of those with brown blood. I need a man of the white-blood shrewdness and boldness and courage to manage those two hundred and fifty to the safety of my people and my island. But if I take a man with white blood in his veins, it will side with the white blood that threatens me.”
“Would Lentala hand over to treason and destruction your Majesty and the queen and all the other Senatras whom she loves, and the people to whom she belongs and the country that has nourished her?”
“Not wittingly, for she is a daughter of the gods; but the blood, my son, the blood!”
“Sire, a love early planted endures forever.”
He rose to fight his despair, and walked up and down the room.
“Yes, it is true,” he said at last. “Lentala has proved it. I spared her father, a castaway, because he stopped a great plague that was destroying my people. I myself was stricken, and he saved my life I feared him because he was of the white blood, and because of his wisdom and power. He held the secrets of the gods, and had no fear. I had planted deep in my people a hatred of the white blood; and I required that he not only disguise himself as a native, but remain within the palace grounds. He taught me many things, but I refused to follow his advice to instruct my subjects. He educated Lentala.”
“Is he still alive?” I asked.