Yet the burden of kingship seemed to press heavily upon the young Naba. Though wearing no diadem, his brow soon became furrowed, as if by its weight, and his air was one of constant preoccupation. His change of manner puzzled me. His mind appeared overshadowed by some gloomy foreboding, the nature of which I could by no amount of cautious questioning elicit. During each day he attended assiduously without relaxation to affairs of state, and when night drew on and the inmates of the great luxurious palace, a veritable city within a city, gave themselves up to reckless enjoyment, he was seldom present, for he would withdraw to one of his small private apartments, and there sit, pretending to read, but in reality brooding in silence. One poignant sorrow had transformed him from a bright, happy youth, to a man sad-eyed, dull, morose. Sometimes, as I watched, I noticed how he would suddenly sigh heavily, and set his teeth as a bitter relentless expression would flit for an instant across his countenance, and I knew that at such moments there entered into his heart the contemplation of a fierce and terrible revenge.
Even to me, his constant companion, whose opinion he sought almost hourly, he made no mention of his heart's sorrow, yet from close observation through many days, I knew the cause of his overwhelming grief was the loss of Liola. He never mentioned her, for the day after we had ascertained the truth about her tragic end, he had taken me aside and asked me never to allow her name to pass my lips in his presence.
"Memories are painful, you know, Scars," he had said. "I must try and forget, try and live down my sorrow if I can, although I fear I shall carry it with me to the grave."
These words I often remembered when, alone with him, I watched the look of ineffable sadness upon his face. In the Hall of Audience, the centre of his brilliant court, his face was always pleasant, smiling and full of good-nature, as it had ever been; but, alas! it was only a mask, for alone, in the privacy of his chamber, he cast it aside and gave himself up to debauches of melancholy painful to behold.
Thus weeks lengthened into months. He had wished me to keep from the people the great loss sustained by the robbery from the Treasure-house, believing that in the circumstances silence was best, and I had not breathed a word to a soul, not even to Kona or Goliba. The city had resumed its old look of prosperity, its markets were crowded daily, and its populace were content in the knowledge that under the reformed régime they were free. Although once every week, Omar, with his court, descended to the Temple of Zomara, and there adored the Crocodile-god, human sacrifices had been discontinued, and the worship of the giant idol was devoid of those revolting practices introduced by the Naya. Of the latter, no tidings had been gleaned. Although every effort had been made to trace her, she had disappeared. Of the treasure of the Sanoms, too, nothing had been heard. How it had been conveyed out of Mo remained an inscrutable mystery.
I confess to being astonished that Omar seldom, if ever, spoke of either of these matters, which had at first so seriously agitated him. Whether he had relinquished all thought of recovering the jewels collected by his ancestors, or whether he was endeavouring to formulate some plan of action I knew not, yet his unwillingness to speak of them was, to say the least, noteworthy.
"Niaro has to-day returned from the gate of Mo," I observed one evening when we were sitting alone together in one of the smaller courts, the night air stirred by the distant sound of stringed instruments and the thumping of Moorish tam-tams. "He has sent messengers by the Way of the Thousand Steps far into the lands beyond, but no word have they been able to gather regarding the Naya."
"She has escaped the mad vengeance of our people, who would have killed her," he said, calmly. "For that I am thankful."
"You seem to have no desire that she should be captured," I said.
"None. She has escaped. After all it is best."