Queen Sheba's Ring: Chapter 4

Chapter 4

THE DEATH WIND

"The fact is," said Higgs presently, speaking with the air of an oracle,
"the fact is that all these accursed sand-hills are as like each other
as mummy beads on the same necklace, and therefore it is very difficult
to know them apart. Give me that water-bottle, Adams; I am as dry as a
lime-kiln."

"No," I said shortly; "you may be drier before the end."

"What do you mean? Oh! I see; but that's nonsense; those Zeus will hunt
us up, or, at the worst, we have only to wait till the sun gets out."

As he spoke, suddenly the air became filled with a curious singing sound
impossible to describe, caused as I knew, who had often heard it before,
by millions and millions of particles of sand being rubbed together. We
turned to see whence it came, and perceived, far away, rushing towards
us with extraordinary swiftness, a huge and dense cloud preceded by
isolated columns and funnels of similar clouds.

"A sand-storm," said Higgs, his florid face paling a little. "Bad luck
for us! That's what comes of getting out of bed the wrong side first
this morning. No, it's your fault, Adams; you helped me to salt last
night, in spite of my remonstrances" (the Professor has sundry little
superstitions of this sort, particularly absurd in so learned a man).
"Well, what shall we do? Get under the lee of the hill until it blows
over?"

"Don't suppose it will blow over. Can't see anything to do except say
our prayers," remarked Orme with sweet resignation. Oliver is, I think,
the coolest hand in an emergency of any one I ever met, except, perhaps,
Sergeant Quick, a man, of course, nearly old enough to be his father.
"The game seems to be pretty well up," he added. "Well, you have killed
two lions, Higgs, and that is something."

"Oh, hang it! You can die if you like, Oliver. The world won't miss you;
but think of its loss if anything happened to _me_. I don't intend to be
wiped out by a beastly sand-storm. I intend to live to write a book on
Mur," and Higgs shook his fist at the advancing clouds with an air that
was really noble. It reminded me of Ajax defying the lightning.

Meanwhile I had been reflecting.

"Listen," I said. "Our only chance is to stop where we are, for if we
move we shall certainly be buried alive. Look; there is something
solid to lie on," and I pointed to a ridge of rock, a kind of core of
congealed sand, from which the surface had been swept by gales. "Down
with you, quick," I went on, "and let's draw that lion-skin over our
heads. It may help to keep the dust from choking us. Hurry, men; it's
coming!"

Coming, it was indeed, with a mighty, wailing roar. Scarcely had we got
ourselves into position, our backs to the blast and our mouths and
noses buried after the fashion of camels in a similar predicament, the
lion-skin covering our heads and bodies to the middle, with the paws
tucked securely beneath us to prevent it from being blown away, when the
storm leaped upon us furiously, bringing darkness in its train. There
we lay for hour after hour, unable to see, unable to talk because of the
roaring noise about us, and only from time to time lifting ourselves
a little upon our hands and knees to disturb the weight of sand that
accumulated on our bodies, lest it should encase us in a living tomb.

Dreadful were the miseries we suffered--the misery of the heat beneath
the stinking pelt of the lion, the misery of the dust-laden air that
choked us almost to suffocation, the misery of thirst, for we could not
get at our scanty supply of water to drink. But worst of all perhaps,
was the pain caused by the continual friction of the sharp sand driven
along at hurricane speed, which, incredible as it may seem, finally wore
holes in our thin clothing and filed our skins to rawness.

"No wonder the Egyptian monuments get such a beautiful shine on them," I
heard poor Higgs muttering in my ear again and again, for he was growing
light-headed; "no wonder, no wonder! My shin-bones will be very useful
to polish Quick's tall riding-boots. Oh! curse the lions. Why did you
help me to salt, you old ass; why did you help me to salt? It's pickling
me behind."

Then he became quite incoherent, and only groaned from time to time.

Perhaps, however, this suffering did us a service, since otherwise
exhaustion, thirst, and dust might have overwhelmed our senses, and
caused us to fall into a sleep from which we never should have awakened.
Yet at the time we were not grateful to it, for at last the agony became
almost unbearable. Indeed, Orme told me afterwards that the last thing
he could remember was a quaint fancy that he had made a colossal fortune
by selling the secret of a new torture to the Chinese--that of hot sand
driven on to the victim by a continuous blast of hot air.

After a while we lost count of time, nor was it until later that we
learned that the storm endured for full twenty hours, during the latter
part of which, notwithstanding our manifold sufferings, we must have
become more or less insensible. At any rate, at one moment I remembered
the awful roar and the stinging of the sand whips, followed by a kind
of vision of the face of my son--that beloved, long-lost son whom I had
sought for so many years, and for whose sake I endured all these things.
Then, without any interval, as it were, I felt my limbs being scorched
as though by hot irons or through a burning-glass, and with a fearful
effort staggered up to find that the storm had passed, and that the
furious sun was blistering my excoriated skin. Rubbing the caked dirt
from my eyes, I looked down to see two mounds like those of graves, out
of which projected legs that had been white. Just then one pair of legs,
the longer pair, stirred, the sand heaved up convulsively, and, uttering
wandering words in a choky voice, there arose the figure of Oliver Orme.

For a moment we stood and stared at each other, and strange spectacles
we were.

"Is he dead?" muttered Orme, pointing to the still buried Higgs.

"Fear so," I answered, "but we'll look;" and painfully we began to
disinter him.

When we came to it beneath the lion-skin, the Professor's face was black
and hideous to see, but, to our relief, we perceived that he was not
dead, for he moved his hand and moaned. Orme looked at me.

"Water would save him," I said.

Then came the anxious moment. One of our water-bottles was emptied
before the storm began, but the other, a large, patent flask covered
with felt, and having a screw vulcanite top, should still contain a good
quantity, perhaps three quarts--that is, if the fluid had not evaporated
in the dreadful heat. If this had happened, it meant that Higgs
would die, and unless help came, that soon we should follow him. Orme
unscrewed the flask, for my hands refused that office, and used his
teeth to draw the cork, which, providentially enough the thoughtful
Quick had set in the neck beneath the screw. Some of the water, which,
although it was quite hot, had _not_ evaporated, thank God! flew against
his parched lips, and I saw him bite them till the blood came in the
fierceness of the temptation to assuage his raging thirst. But he
resisted it like the man he is, and, without drinking a drop, handed me
the bottle, saying simply:

"You are the oldest; take care of this, Adams."

Now it was my turn to be tempted, but I, too, overcame, and, sitting
down, laid Higgs's head upon my knee; then, drop by drop, let a little
of the water trickle between his swollen lips.

The effect was magical, for in less than a minute the Professor sat up,
grasped at the flask with both hands, and strove to tear it away.

"You cruel brute! You cruel selfish brute!" he moaned as I wrenched it
from him.

"Look here, Higgs," I answered thickly; "Orme and I want water badly
enough, and we have had none. But you might take it all if it would save
you, only it wouldn't. We are lost in the desert, and must be sparing.
If you drank everything now, in a few hours you would be thirsty again
and die."

He thought awhile, then looked up and said:

"Beg pardon--I understand. I'm the selfish brute. But there's a good lot
of water there; let's each have a drink; we can't move unless we do."

So we drank, measuring out the water in a little india-rubber cup which
we had with us. It held about as much as a port wine glass, and each of
us drank, or rather slowly sipped, three cupfuls; we who felt as though
we could have swallowed a gallon apiece, and asked for more. Small as
was the allowance, it worked wonders in us; we were men again.

We stood up and looked about us, but the great storm had changed
everything. Where there had been sand-hills a hundred feet high,
now were plains and valleys; where there had been valleys appeared
sand-hills. Only the high ridge upon which we had lain was as before,
because it stood above the others and had a core of rock. We tried to
discover the direction of the oasis by the position of the sun, only to
be baffled, since our two watches had run down, and we did not know the
time of day or where the sun ought to be in the heavens. Also, in
that howling wilderness there was nothing to show us the points of the
compass.

Higgs, whose obstinacy remained unimpaired, whatever may have happened
to the rest of his vital forces, had one view of the matter, and Orme
another diametrically opposed to it. They even argued as to whether
the oasis lay to our right or to our left, for their poor heads were
so confused that they were scarcely capable of accurate thought or
observation. Meanwhile I sat down upon the sand and considered. Through
the haze I could see the points of what I thought must be the hills
whence the Zeus declared that the lions came, although of course, for
aught I knew, they might be other hills.

"Listen," I said; "if lions live upon those hills, there must be water
there. Let us try to reach them; perhaps we shall see the oasis as we
go."

Then began our dreadful march. The lion-skin that had saved our lives,
and was now baked hard as a board, we left behind, but the rifles we
took. All day long we dragged ourselves up and down steep sand-slopes,
pausing now again to drink a sip of water, and hoping always that from
the top of the next slope we should see a rescue party headed by Quick,
or perhaps the oasis itself. Indeed, once we did see it, green and
shining, not more than three miles away, but when we got to the head of
the hill beyond which it should lie we found that the vision was only
a mirage, and our hearts nearly broke with disappointment. Oh! to men
dying of thirst, that mirage was indeed a cruel mockery.

At length night approached, and the mountains were yet a long way off.
We could march no more, and sank down exhausted, lying on our faces,
because our backs were so cut by the driving sand and blistered by
the sun that we could not sit. By now almost all our water was gone.
Suddenly Higgs nudged us and pointed upwards. Following the line of his
hand, we saw, not thirty yards away and showing clear against the sky,
a file of antelopes trekking along the sand-ridge, doubtless on a night
journey from one pasturage to another.

"You fellows shoot," he muttered; "I might miss and frighten them away,"
for in his distress poor Higgs was growing modest.

Slowly Orme and I drew ourselves to our knees, cocking our rifles. By
this time all the buck save one had passed; there were but six of them,
and this one marched along about twenty yards behind the others. Orme
pulled the trigger, but his rifle would not go off because, as he
discovered afterwards, some sand had worked into the mechanism of the
lock.

Meanwhile I had also covered the buck, but the sunset dazzled my
weakened eyes, and my arms were feeble; also my terrible anxiety for
success, since I knew that on this shot hung our lives, unnerved me. But
it must be now or never; in three more paces the beast would be down the
dip.

I fired, and knowing that I had missed, turned sick and faint. The
antelope bounded forward a few yards right to the edge of the dip; then,
never having heard such a sound before, and being overcome by some fatal
curiosity, stopped and turned around, staring at the direction whence it
had come.

Despairingly I fired again, almost without taking aim, and this time the
bullet went in beneath the throat, and, raking the animal, dropped it
dead as a stone. We scrambled to it, and presently were engaged in an
awful meal of which we never afterwards liked to think. Happily for us
that antelope must have drunk water not long before.

Our hunger and thirst assuaged after this horrible fashion, we slept
awhile by the carcase, then arose extraordinarily refreshed, and, having
cut off some hunks of meat to carry with us, started on again. By the
position of the stars, we now knew that the oasis must lie somewhere to
the east of us; but as between us and it there appeared to be nothing
but these eternal sand-hills stretching away for many miles, and as in
front of us toward the range the character of the desert seemed to be
changing, we thought it safer, if the word safety can be used in such
a connection, to continue to head for that range. All the remainder of
this night we marched, and, as we had no fuel wherewith to cook it, at
dawn ate some of the raw meat, which we washed down with the last drops
of our water.

Now we were out of the sand-hills, and had entered on a great pebbly
plain that lay between us and the foot of the mountains. These looked
quiet close, but in fact were still far off. Feebly and ever more feebly
we staggered on, meeting no one and finding no water, though here and
there we came across little bushes, of which we chewed the stringy and
aromatic leaves that contained some moisture, but drew up our mouths and
throats like alum.

Higgs, who was the softest of us, gave out the first, though to the
last he struggled forward with surprising pluck, even after he had been
obliged to throw away his rifle, because he could no longer carry it,
though this we did not notice at the time. When he could not support
himself upon his feet, Orme took him by one arm, and I by the other,
and helped him on, much as I have seen two elephants do by a wounded
companion of the herd.

Half-an-hour or so later my strength failed me also. Although advanced
in years, I am tough and accustomed to the desert and hardships; who
would not be who had been a slave to the Khalifa? But now I could do no
more, and halting, begged the others to go on and leave me. Orme's only
answer was to proffer me his left arm. I took it, for life is sweet
to us all, especially when one has something to live for--a desire
to fulfil as I had, though to tell the truth, even at the time I felt
ashamed of myself.

Thus, then, we proceeded awhile, resembling a sober man attempting to
lead two drunken friends out of reach of that stern policeman, Death.
Orme's strength must be wonderful; or was it his great spirit and his
tender pity for our helplessness which enabled him to endure beneath
this double burden.

Suddenly he fell down as though he had been shot, and lay there
senseless. The Professor, however, retained some portion of his mind,
although it wandered. He became light-headed, and rambled on about our
madness in having undertaken such a journey, "just to pot a couple of
beastly lions," and although I did not answer them, I agreed heartily
with his remarks. Then he seemed to imagine that I was a clergyman, and
kneeling on the sand, he made a lengthy confession of his sins which,
so far as I gathered, though I did not pay much attention to them, for
I was thinking of my own, appeared chiefly to consist of the unlawful
acquisition of certain objects of antiquity, or of having overmatched
others in the purchase of such objects.

To pacify him, for I feared lest he should go raving mad, I pronounced
some religious absolution, whereon poor Higgs rolled over and lay still
by Orme. Yes; he, the friend whom I had always loved, for his very
failings were endearing, was dead or at the point of death, like the
gallant young man at his side, and I myself was dying. Tremors shook
my limbs; horrible waves of blackness seemed to well up from my vitals,
through my breast to my brain, and thence to evaporate in queer, jagged
lines and patches, which I realized, but could not actually see. Gay
memories of my far-off childhood arose in me, particularly those of a
Christmas party where I had met a little girl dressed like an elf,
a little girl with blue eyes whom I had loved dearly for quite a
fortnight, to be beaten down, stamped out, swallowed by that vision
of the imminent shadow which awaits all mankind, the black womb of a
re-birth, if re-birth there be.

What could I do? I thought of lighting a fire; at any rate it would
serve to scare the lions and other wild beasts which else might prey
upon us before we were quite dead. It would be dreadful to lie helpless
but sentient, and feel their rending fangs. But I had no strength to
collect the material. To do so at best must have meant a long walk, for
even here it was not plentiful. I had a few cartridges left--three, to
be accurate--in my repeating rifle; the rest I had thrown away to be rid
of their weight. I determined to fire them, since, in my state I thought
they could no longer serve either to win food or for the purposes of
defence, although, as it happened, in this I was wrong. It was possible
that, even in that endless desert, some one might hear the shots, and if
not--well, good-night.

So I sat up and fired the first cartridge, wondering in a childish
fashion where the bullet would fall. Then I went to sleep for awhile.
The howling of a hyena woke me up, and, on glancing around, I saw the
beast's flaming eyes quite close to me. I aimed and shot at it, and
heard a yell of pain. That hyena, I reflected, would want no more food
at present.

The silence of the desert overwhelmed me; it was so terrible that I
almost wished the hyena back for company. Holding the rifle above my
head, I fired the third cartridge. Then I took the hand of Higgs in my
own, for, after all, it was a link--the last link with humanity and the
world--and lay down in the company of death that seemed to fall upon me
in black and smothering veils.

I woke up and became aware that some one was pouring water down my
throat. Heaven! I thought to myself, for at that time heaven and water
were synonymous in my mind. I drank a good deal of it, not all I wanted
by any means, but as much as the pourer would allow, then raised myself
upon my hands and looked. The starlight was extraordinarily clear in
that pure desert atmosphere, and by it I saw the face of Sergeant
Quick bending over me. Also, I saw Orme sitting up, staring about him
stupidly, while a great yellow dog, with a head like a mastiff, licked
his hand. I knew the dog at once; it was that which Orme had bought
from some wandering natives, and named Pharaoh because he ruled over all
other dogs. Moreover, I knew the two camels that stood near by. So I was
still on earth--unless, indeed we had all moved on a step.

"How did you find us, Sergeant?" I asked feebly.

"Didn't find you, Doctor," answered Quick, "dog Pharaoh found you. In a
business like this a dog is more useful than man, for he can smell
what one can't see. Now, if you feel better, Doctor, please look at Mr.
Higgs, for I fear he's gone."

I looked, and, although I did not say so, was of the same opinion. His
jaw had fallen, and he lay limp and senseless; his eyes I could not see,
because of the black spectacles.

"Water," I said, and Quick poured some into his mouth, where it
vanished.

Still he did not stir, so I opened his garments and felt his heart.
At first I could detect nothing; then there was the slightest possible
flutter.

"There's hope," I said in answer to the questioning looks. "You don't
happen to have any brandy, do you?" I added.

"Never travelled without it yet, Doctor," replied Quick indignantly,
producing a metal flask.

"Give him some," I said, and the Sergeant obeyed with liberality and
almost instantaneous effect, for Higgs sat up gasping and coughing.

"Brandy; filthy stuff; teetotaller! Cursed trick! Never forgive you.
Water, water," he spluttered in a thick, low voice.

We gave it to him, and he drank copiously, until we would let him have
no more indeed. Then, by degrees, his senses came back to him. He thrust
up his black spectacles which he had worn all this while, and stared at
the Sergeant with his sharp eyes.

"I understand," he said. "So we are not dead, after all, which perhaps
is a pity after getting through the beastly preliminaries. What has
happened?"

"Don't quite know," answered Orme; "ask Quick."

But the Sergeant was already engaged in lighting a little fire and
setting a camp-kettle to boil, into which he poured a tin of beef
extract that he had brought with other eatables from our stores on the
chance that he might find us. In fifteen minutes we were drinking soup,
for I forbade anything more solid as yet, and, oh! what a blessed meal
was that. When it was finished, Quick fetched some blankets from the
camels, which he threw over us.

"Lie down and sleep, gentlemen," he said; "Pharaoh and I will watch."

The last thing I remember was seeing the Sergeant, in his own fashion an
extremely religious man, and not ashamed of it, kneeling upon the
sand and apparently saying his prayers. As he explained afterwards,
of course, as a fatalist, he knew well that whatever must happen would
happen, but still he considered it right and proper to return thanks to
the Power which had arranged that on this occasion the happenings should
be good, and not ill, a sentiment with which every one of us agreed.
Opposite to him, with one of his faithful eyes fixed on Orme, sat
Pharaoh in grave contemplation. Doubtless, being an Eastern dog, he
understood the meaning of public prayer; or perhaps he thought that he
should receive some share of gratitude and thanks.

When we awoke the sun was already high, and to show us that we had
dreamed no dream, there was Quick frying tinned bacon over the fire,
while Pharaoh sat still and watched him--or the bacon.

"Look," said Orme to me, pointing to the mountains, "they are still
miles away. It was madness to think that we could reach them."

I nodded, then turned to stare at Higgs, who was just waking up, for,
indeed, he was a sight to see. His fiery red hair was full of sand, his
nether garments were gone, apparently at some stage in our march he had
dispensed with the remains of them because they chafed his sore limbs,
and his fair skin, not excluding that of his face, was a mass of
blisters, raised by the sun. In fact he was so disfigured that his worst
enemy would not have known him. He yawned, stretched himself, always a
good sign in man or beast, and asked for a bath.

"I am afraid you will have to wash yourself in sand here, sir, like them
filthy Arabians," said Quick, saluting. "No water to spare for baths in
this dry country. But I've got a tube of hazeline, also a hair-brush and
a looking-glass," he added, producing these articles.

"Quite so, Sergeant," said Higgs, as he took them; "it's sacrilege to
think of using water to wash. I intend never to waste it in that way
again." Then he looked at himself in the glass, and let it fall upon the
sand, ejaculating, "Oh! good Lord, is that me?"

"Please be careful, sir," said the Sergeant sternly; "you told me the
other day that it's unlucky to break a looking-glass; also I have no
other."

"Take it away," said the Professor; "I don't want it any more, and,
Doctor, come and oil my face, there's a good fellow; yes, and the rest
of me also, if there is enough hazeline."

So we treated each other with the ointment, which at first made us smart
fearfully, and then, very gingerly sat down to breakfast.

"Now, Sergeant," said Orme, as he finished his fifth pannikin of tea,
"tell us your story."

"There isn't much of a story, Captain. Those Zeu fellows came back
without you, and, not knowing the lingo, I could make nothing of their
tale. Well, I soon made Shadrach and Co. understand that, death-wind or
no death-wind--that's what they call it--they must come with me to look
for you, and at last we started, although they said that I was mad,
as you were dead already. Indeed, it wasn't until I asked that fellow
Shadrach if he wanted to be dead too"--and the Sergeant tapped his
revolver grimly--"that he would let any one go.

"As it proved, he was right, for we couldn't find you, and after awhile
the camels refused to face the storm any longer; also one of the Abati
drivers was lost, and hasn't been heard of since. It was all the rest
of us could do to get back to the oasis alive, nor would Shadrach go out
again even after the storm had blown itself away. It was no use arguing
with the pig, so, as I did not want his blood upon my hands, I took two
camels and started with the dog Pharaoh for company.

"Now this was my thought, although I could not explain it to the Abati
crowd, that if you lived at all, you would almost certainly head for
the hills as I knew you had no compass, and you would not be able to
see anything else. So I rode along the plain which stretches between the
desert and the mountains, keeping on the edge of the sand-hills. I rode
all day, but when night came I halted, since I could see no more. There
I sat in that great place, thinking, and after an hour or two I observed
Pharaoh prick his ears and look toward the west. So I also started
toward the west, and presently I thought that I saw one faint streak
of light which seemed to go upward, and therefore couldn't come from a
falling star, but might have come from a rifle fired toward the sky.

"I listened, but no sound reached me, only presently, some seconds
afterwards, the dog again pricked his ears as though _he_ heard
something. That settled me, and I mounted and rode forward through the
night toward the place where I thought I had seen the flash. For two
hours I rode, firing my revolver from time to time; then as no answer
came, gave it up as a bad job, and stopped. But Pharaoh there wouldn't
stop. He began to whine and sniff and run forward, and at last bolted
into the darkness, out of which presently I heard him barking some
hundreds of yards away, to call me, I suppose. So I followed and found
you three gentlemen, dead, as I thought at first. That's all the story,
Captain."

"One with a good end, anyway, Sergeant. We owe our lives to you."

"Beg your pardon, Captain," answered Quick modestly; "not to me at all,
but to Providence first that arranged everything, before we were born
perhaps, and next to Pharaoh. He's a wise dog, Pharaoh, though fierce
with some, and you did a good deal when you bought him for a bottle of
whisky and a sixpenny pocket-knife."

It was dawn on the following morning before we sighted the oasis,
whither we could travel but slowly, since, owing to the lack of camels,
two of us must walk. Of these two, as may be guessed, the Sergeant was
always one and his master the other, for of all the men I ever knew I
think that in such matters Orme is the most unselfish. Nothing would
induce him to mount one of the camels, even for half-an-hour, so that
when I walked, the brute went riderless. On the other hand, once he was
on, notwithstanding the agonies he suffered from his soreness, nothing
would induce Higgs to get off.

"Here I am and here I stop," he said several times, in English, French,
and sundry Oriental languages. "I've tramped it enough to last me the
rest of my life."

Both of us were dozing upon our saddles when suddenly I heard the
Sergeant calling to the camels to halt and asked what was the matter.

"Looks like Arabians, Doctor," he said, pointing to a cloud of dust
advancing toward us.

"Well, if so," I answered, "our best chance is to show no fear and go
on. I don't think they will harm us."

So, having made ready such weapons as we had, we advanced, Orme and the
Sergeant walking between the two camels, until presently we encountered
the other caravan, and, to our astonishment, saw none other than
Shadrach riding at the head of it, mounted on my dromedary, which his
own mistress, the Lady of the Abati, had given to me. We came face to
face, and halted, staring at each other.

"By the beard of Aaron! is it you, lords?" he asked. "We thought you
were dead."

"By the hair of Moses! so I gather," I answered angrily, "seeing that
you are going off with all our belongings," and I pointed to the baggage
camels laden with goods.

Then followed explanations and voluble apologies, which Higgs for one
accepted with a very bad grace. Indeed, as he can talk Arabic and its
dialects perfectly, he made use of that tongue to pour upon the heads of
Shadrach and his companions a stream of Eastern invective that must have
astonished them, ably seconded as it was by Sergeant Quick in English.

Orme listened for some time, then said:

"That'll do, old fellow; if you go on, you will get up a row, and,
Sergeant, be good enough to hold your tongue. We have met them, so there
is no harm done. Now, friend Shadrach, turn back with us to the oasis.
We are going to rest there for some days."

Shadrach looked sulky, and said something about our turning and going on
with _them_, whereon I produced the ancient ring, Sheba's ring, which I
had brought as a token from Mur. This I held before his eyes, saying:

"Disobey, and there will be an account to settle when you come into the
presence of her who sent you forth, for even if we four should die"--and
I looked at him meaningly--"think not that you will be able to hide this
matter; there are too many witnesses."

Then, without more words, he saluted the sacred ring, and we all went
back to Zeu.

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