“Then I think they will remain hungry a long time, Vernoon, for while I live you shall never return.  Much as I love you I would kill you first,” and her eyes glittered as she said the words.  “Still,” she added, noting the fall in his face, “if it is gold that they need, you shall send it them.  Yes, my people shall take all that I gave you down to the coast, and there it can be put in a big canoe and carried across the water.  See to the packing of the stuff, you black dog,” she said to Jeekie over her shoulder, “and when it is ready I will send it hence.”

Alan began to thank her, though he thought it more than probable that even if she kept her word, this bullion would never get to Old Calabar, and much less to England.  But she waived the matter aside as one in which she was not interested.

“Tell me,” she asked; “would you have me other than I am?  First, do you think me beautiful?”

“Yes,” answered Alan honestly, “very beautiful when you are quiet as now, not when you are dancing as you did the other night without your robes.”

When she understood what he meant the Asika actually blushed a little.

“I am sorry,” she answered in a voice that for her was quite humble.  “I forget that it might seem strange in your eyes.  It has always been the custom for the Asika to do as I did at feasts and sacrifices, but perhaps that is not the fashion among your women; perhaps they always remain veiled, as I have heard the worshippers of the Prophet do, and therefore you thought me immodest.  I am very, very sorry, Vernoon.  I pray you to forgive me who am ignorant and only do what I have been taught.”

“Yes, they always remain veiled,” stammered Alan, though he was not referring to their faces, and as the words passed his lips he wondered what the Asika would think if she could see a ballet at a London music-hall.

“Is there anything else wrong?” she went on gently.  “If so, tell me that I may set it right.”

“I do not like cruelty or sacrifices, O Asika.  I have told you that bloodshed is orunda to me, and at the feast those men were poisoned and you mocked them in their pain; also many others were taken away to be killed for no crime.”

She opened her beautiful eyes and stared at him, answering: 

“But, Vernoon, all this is not my fault; they were sacrifices to the gods, and if I did not sacrifice, I should be sacrificed by the priests and wizards who live to sacrifice.  Yes, myself I should be made to drink the poison and be mocked at while I died like a snake with a broken back.  Or even if I escaped the vengeance of the people, the gods themselves would kill me and raise up another in my place.  Do they not sacrifice in your country, Vernoon?”

“No, Asika, they fight if necessary and kill those who commit murder.  But they have no fetish that asks for blood, and the law they have from heaven is a law of mercy.”