“Yes, Sire. Isn’t it time to mount the wall?”
“No. There is no foreseeing what this diversion will accomplish.”
There was a pause.
“He is advancing toward the gate, bellowing. Surely you hear him?”
“Yes, Sire.” My heart bounded, for I recognized the voice.
“He is crying in English, ‘They brought me out to eat me!’ He thinks we are cannibals!” exclaimed the king, aghast.
“All the white people in the valley think so, your Majesty.”
He blazed with resentment, but his attention was again concentrated on the proceedings without.
“He is calling me the chief of the cannibals,” resumed the king, “and is fighting his way to the gate. He shouts that he must be the first to enter, and that he will find me and strangle me.... He is a maniac. The natives have a horror of that malady. The noise is subsiding. Don’t you notice?”
“Yes, Sire; and now I will rescue the madman.”