Page:Orczy--the gates of Kamt.djvu/137

 came the turn of the living.

Once more the herald called a name—a woman's—three times:

"Kesh-ta! Kesh-ta! Kesh-ta!" and thrice the cry resounded:

"Is she there? Is she there? Is she there?"

But this time there were no reassuring words about mercy and fearlessness. The living evidently were more harshly dealt with in Kamt than the dead.

Pushed and jostled by a couple of men, her hands tied behind her back, a rope round her neck, a woman suddenly appeared in the circle of light. Her eyes roamed wildly round, half-defiant, half-terrified; her hair hung tangled over her shoulders, and the whole of one side of her face was one ugly gaping wound.

"Who and what art thou?" demanded the judges.

The woman did not reply. She looked to me half a maniac, and wholly irresponsible; but the men behind her prodded her with their spears, till she fell upon her knees. Hugh had frowned, his own special ugly frown. I could see that he would not stand this sort of thing very long, and I held myself ready to restrain him, if I could, from doing anything rash, or to lend him a helping hand if he refused to be restrained.

Suddenly his attention and mine was arrested by a name, and wondering, we listened, spell-bound by its strange and unaccountable magic.

The judges had peremptorily repeated: 121