It is solely to the belief--which, through
Ala, I have succeeded in impressing upon him--that we are _children of
the sun_ that I owe the success of my efforts in your behalf. Without
that you would surely have been sacrificed, and we with you.
"One of the forms which this superstition takes is a belief that the
anger of the sun god can be mollified by offerings of images, made in his
likeness, which are first consecrated by the chief priest, and then hung
up on the walls of certain small temples, which are scattered through the
city, and are always kept open to the air under the guard of a minor
priest and his attendants. A whole family, as I understand it, deems
itself protected by one of these images, which are made by artists who
never touch any other work, and which are only granted to those who have
undergone a painful series of purifications in the great temple. The
preliminary ceremonies finished, the images are suspended, and at certain
times those to whom they belong go and kneel and pray before them, as
before their guardian saints."
"What a fool I was not to understand it," I murmured.
"You will understand now," Edmund continued, "how serious was Jack's
offense in insulting a priest, and laying impious hands upon a sacred
image, belonging, no doubt, to a family whose antiquity of descent would
make our oldest pedigrees on the earth seem as ephemeral as the existence
of a May fly; for I am convinced that here life has gone on,
uninterrupted by wars and changes of dynasty, for untold ages.
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