“Then give it,” I said, for although I did not altogether like the security, obviously it was the best to be had.

So very solemnly they laid their right hands upon the altar and “in the presence of the Child and the name of the Child and of all the White Kendah people,” repeated after Harut a most solemn oath of which I have already given the substance.  It called down on their heads a very dreadful doom in this world and the next, should it be broken either in the spirit or the letter; the said oath, however, to be only binding if we, on our part, swore to observe their terms and kept our engagement also in the spirit and the letter.

Then they asked us to fulfil our share of the pact and very considerately drew out of hearing while we discussed the matter; Harut, the only one of them who understood a word of English, retiring behind the sanctuary.  At first I had difficulties with Ragnall, who was most unwilling to bind himself in any way.  In the end, on my pointing out that nothing less than our lives were involved and probably that of his wife as well, also that no other course was open to us, he gave way, to my great relief.

Hans announced himself ready to swear anything, adding blandly that words mattered nothing, as afterwards we could do whatever seemed best in our own interests, whereon I read him a short moral lecture on the heinousness of perjury, which did not seem to impress him very much.

This matter settled, we called back the priests and informed them of our decision.  Harut demanded that we should affirm it “by the Child,” which we declined to do, saying that it was our custom to swear only in the name of our own God.  Being a liberal-minded man who had travelled, Harut gave way on the point.  So I swore first to the effect that I would fight for the White Kendah to the finish in consideration of the promises that they had made to us.  I added that I would not attempt either to see or to interfere with the lady here known as the Guardian of the Child until the war was over or even to bring our existence to her knowledge, ending up, “so help me God,” as I had done several times when giving evidence in a court of law.

Next Ragnall with a great effort repeated my oath in English, Harut listening carefully to every word and once or twice asking me to explain the exact meaning of some of them.

Lastly Hans, who seemed very bored with the whole affair, swore, also repeating the words after me and finishing on his own account with “so help me the reverend Predikant, the Baas’s father,” a form that he utterly declined to vary although it involved more explanations.  When pressed, indeed, he showed considerable ingenuity by pointing out to the priests that to his mind my poor father stood in exactly the same relation to the Power above us as their Oracle did to the Child.  He offered generously, however, to throw in the spirits of his grandfather and grandmother and some extraordinary divinity they worshipped, I think it was a hare, as an additional guarantee of good faith.  This proposal the priests accepted gravely, whereon Hans whispered into my ear in Dutch: