Juba
belonged to their world, however remote the ancestral connection might
be; he possessed at least the elements of their unspoken language; and
_it might be a tradition among his people, who we knew worshipped the
earth-star, that it was a brighter world than theirs_. Had Edmund's
gesture suddenly suggested to his mind the truth concerning us--a truth
which the others had not his means of comprehending--and could he now
bear effective testimony in our favor?
With what trembling anxiety I watched his movements! Edmund, too, looked
at him with mingled surprise and interest in his face. Presently he
raised his long arm, as Edmund had done, and pointed upward. A momentary
chill of disappointment ran through me--could he do no more than that?
But he _did_ more. Half unconsciously I had stepped forward where I could
see his face. _His eyes were speaking._ I knew it. And, thank God! there
was a gleam of intelligence answering him from the eyes of our judges.
He had made his point; he had suggested to them a thought of which they
had never dreamed!
They did not thoroughly comprehend him; I could see that, for he must
have been for them like one speaking a different dialect, to say nothing
of the fundamental difficulty of the idea that he was trying to convey,
but yet the meaning did not escape, and as he continued his strange
communication, the wonder spread from face to face, for it was not only
the judges who had grasped the general sense of what he was telling them.
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