"He was doin' it so convincin'ly that he had me badly

worried. I was wonderin' whether you could ever have reached his warehouse that night, or if you had, whether you'd managed to get out of Bekla alive.

"Well, all of a sudden he looked round and there was Fornis starin' up at him without a word. He hadn't been expectin' that, of course, and he stopped dead in the middle of what he was sayin'.

"She took her time, lookin' him up and down. Everybody was watchin' and waitin' to see what would happen. And at last she said 'Come here.'

"Well, that put him fair and square on the spot, banzi, you see; because either he had to climb dpwn off the Scales and go and stand in front of her, or else he had to refuse to obey the Sacred Queen-and he hadn' quite got himself up to that pitch yet.

"He hesitated for quite a few moments, and Fornis just sat there and waited. And then he climbed down off the Scales-yes, he did: she was incredible, that woman, wasn' she?-and he went and stood in front of her.

" 'Now,' she said, 'what is all this that you've been talkin' about, may I ask?'

"You could see he was frightened, but he still did his best to stand up to her. 'We're talkin' about Maia Serre-linda, esta-saiyett,' he answered. 'We want to know where she is. We believe you've done away with her.'

" 'Oh, really?' says Fornis, noddin' once or twice and fannin' herself-it was scorchin' hot that mornin'. 'I see! Well then, you'd better learn differently, hadn' you? For as it happens I know who killed Maia.'

"That fairly made my blood run cold, banzi, for I believed her. Everyone believed her. You could see it in their faces. They were all paralyzed like rabbits by a stoat. And what she was goin' to say next I doan' know, but if she'd told them all to go up the Sheldad and jump in the Monju I believe they'd have done it.

" 'I think you'd better come along with me to the temple,' she said to N'Kasit, 'so that we can sort this little matter out.'

"And then, banzi, just for once she got a taste of her own medicine; the only person in the whole of Bekla, I suppose, who wasn' afraid of her. Well, you'd have to be mad, wouldn' you, not to be afraid of herV

"Who?" asked Maia, leaning forward and gripping the edge of the table. "Who, Occula? Who?"

"D'you remember old Jejjereth, the crazy prophet-man?" replied the black girl. "It was him. All in a moment he'd leapt out of the crowd and there he was, dancin' and jab-berin' like a great, stinkin' ape alongside your jekzha.

" 'Ah!' he shouted. 'A shadow! A shadow will cover the city! The evil woman who gave me a knife to kill Maia! But I wouldn' do it! And when you shall see a murderess sittin' on the sacred throne, then you shall know that the judgement of the gods is nigh at hand!' And he said a whole lot more like that, banzi. He was wavin' his arms about and hoppin' from one foot to the other, and then he tried to climb up into the jekzha. ›

"Fornis didn' hesitate a second. She drew her knife- she never went anywhere without a knife, you know-and stabbed him straight to the heart. He went down without another word; but he was kickin' and thrashin' about in the dust for quite a bit, and the blood was somethin' to see: I can see it now.

" 'Right, let's get on,' says Fornis to the jekzha-men. 'We've wasted enough time here.' And off they set.

"But N'Kasit wasn't followin' her as she'd told him to.

" 'She's killed poor old Jejjereth!' he yelled to the people. As if they needed any tellin'! 'Poor old Jejjereth, that never harmed anyone! And she's got Maia's jekzha, too!'

"And that was the last I saw, because Fornis jus' went straight on without takin' the slightest notice, and none of them dared to touch her.

"We didn' go to the temple, though. She'd changed her mind about stayin' down in the lower city. As soon as we got down to the bottom of Storks Hill she made them go round by the Slave Market and back to the Peacock Gate without goin' through the Caravan Market again at all.

"Well, that evenin' I was helpin' Ashaktis to wait on her at supper when Zuno came in and said there was an officer outside who wanted to speak to her.

" 'What d'you mean, an officer?' says Fornis. 'Who is it?'

"Well, before Zuno could answer the officer came in, and who d'you reckon it was?"

Maia shook her head.

"It was Shend-Lador," said Occula. "I'd heard he'd come back to Bekla with Elvair, but of course I hadn' actually seen him. He saluted Fornis and then he said, 'Esta-saiyett,

you must excuse this intrusion. Believe me, it may very well save your life and that's my only excuse.'

"Well, you remember Shenda, doan' you? It'd be very difficult for anyone, even Fornis, to get angry with Shenda. He always had a sort of a way with him, didn't he?

" 'You'd better tell me, then,' she said.

" 'It's the chief priest who's sent me, esta-saiyett,' says he.

" 'The chief priest?' answers Fornis. 'Well, you go back and tell the chief priest that if he's got anythin' to say to me he can come up here and say it for himself.'

" 'Well, that's just it, esta-saiyett,' said Shenda. 'He can't.'

" 'What d'you mean, he can't?' she asked.

" 'Well, esta-saiyett, it so happened I was down at the temple this evenin', havin' treatment for this wounded foot of mine from one of the priests. And while I was there, all of a sudden we heard this commotion outside. So the doctor and me, we went out to see what was up, and there was the chief priest and a lot of others; and down in the Tamarrik Court below there was this crowd-all sorts; women, too-and the chief priest was tryin' to calm them down; only he couldn' make himself heard. They just kept on shoutin' "Serrelinda! Serrelinda!" and "Murder! Murder!" and "Jejjereth!" and things like that.'

" 'Well, I'll cut it short, esta-saiyett,' goes on Shenda. 'What it comes to is that the chief priest's sent me to tell you that the whole lower city's in a state close on disorder and riot. He sent me because he thought that as a wounded officer I'd be able to get through the streets without bein' set upon. There's no priest dares put his face outside the temple, you see. What the people are sayin'-and I beg you to bear in mind, esta-saiyett, that I'm only reportin' what the chief priest told me to tell you-is that you've murdered Maia Serrelinda. To be perfectly blunt, esta-saiyett, they're demandin' your life. The chief priest thinks you should leave Bekla at once, and keep out of the way for some time. He hopes you'll send him word where you are, and he'll let you know as soon as things are better.'

"And then, while Fornis was still chewin' on that, Shend-Lador added, "The chief priest particularly asked me to say, esta-saiyett, that if he can' assure the people that you've left the city, he woan' be answerable for anythin' that may happen.'

"Well, the next few hours were like a bastin' madhouse, banzi: you can' imagine it. Fornis insistin' she'd go down to the lower city herself and give them a piece of her mind, and Han-Glat preventin' her more or less by force: and then there were two more frantic messages from the chief priest, one brought by a pedlar and the other by a shearna called Nyllista (and I wonder what she was doin' in the temple, doan' you?). No one else could get through the mob, you see. You never heard such a shine in your life.

"Well, at last, in the middle of the night, above five or six hours after Shend-Lador had first come, Han-Glat told Fornis in so many words that she'd have to get out. And he flatly refused to come with her. He'd got Bekia and he meant to hang on to it. She raged and stormed and cursed, but he wouldn' budge an inch. And at last it began to dawn on Miss Fornis that if she refused he might even go the length of killin' her himself-that or else hand her over to the mob. The riotin' had been goin' on all night and we were half-expectin' them to come over the Peacock Wall any moment. The Pal-teshis were there to stop them, of course, but even they were pretty badly shaken by this time.