Ah! that priestess!  Somehow he shivered a little when he thought of her; it was as though her influence were over him already.  Next moment he forgot her for a while, for they had come to the river brink and the litter was being carried on to a barge or ferry, about which were gathered many armed men.  Evidently the Gold House was well defended both by Nature and otherwise.  The ferry was pulled or rowed across the river, he could not see which, and they passed through a gateway into the town and up a broad street where hundreds of people watched his advent.  They did not seem to speak, or if they spoke their voices were lost in the sound of the thunder of the great cataract which dominated the place with its sullen, continuous roar.  It took Alan days to become accustomed to that roar, but by the inhabitants of Asiki-land apparently it was not noticed; their ears and voices were attuned to overcome its volume which their fathers had known from the beginning.

Presently they were through the town and a wooden gate in an inner wall which surrounded the park where the cedars grew.  At this spot Alan noted that everybody left them except the bearers and a few men whom he took to be priests.  On they stole like ghosts beneath the mighty trees, from whose limbs hung long festoons of moss.  It was very dark there, only in places where a bough was broken the moonlight lay in white gules upon the ground.  Another wall and another gate, and suddenly the litter was set down.  Its curtains opened, torches flashed, women appeared clad in white robes, veiled and mysterious, who bowed before him, then half led and half lifted him from his litter.  He could feel their eyes on him through their veils, but he could not see their faces.  He could see nothing except their naked, copper-coloured arms and long thin hands stretched out to assist him.

Alan descended from the litter as slowly as he could, for somehow he shrank from the quaint, carved portal which he saw before him.  He did not wish to pass it; its aspect filled him with reluctance.  The women drew him on, their hands pulled at his arms, their shoulders pressed him from behind.  Still he hung back, looking about him, till to his delight he saw the other litter arrive and out of it emerge Jeekie, still wearing his sun-helmet with its fringe of tattered mosquito curtain.

“Here we are, Major,” he said in his cheerful voice, “turned up all right like a bad ha’penny, but in odd situation.”

“Very odd,” echoed Alan.  “Could you persuade these ladies to let go of me?”

“Don’t know,” answered Jeekie. “’Spect they doubtfully your wives; ’spect you have lots of wives here; don’t get white man every day, so make most of him.  Best thing you do, kick out and teach them place.  Rub nose in dirt at once and make them good, that first-class plan with female.  I no like interfere in such delicate matter.”