Cumner & South Sea Folk, Complete

s way through the native villages more by instinct than by sight. As time passed he saw more clearly; he could make out the figures of native

als and added incense, that the gods might be good to the ailing child on the mat; and thrice, at forges in the village, he saw

ed his eyes into the night after Cumner's Son. He waited a few moments; then, as if with a sudden thought, he ran to a horse tethered near by and vaulte

de a mare that had once belonged to Pango Dooni, and Pango Dooni h

ned no gift save the gold bracelet whi

thirsty hound to water, the sorrel tugged at the sn

low gallop

eep hate or h

ugh the jungle for the tiger and the panther, by throwing the kris with Boonda Broke, fencing with McDermot, and by sabre practice with red-headed Sergeant Doolan in the barracks by the Residency Square. After twenty miles' ride he was dry as a bone, after thirty his skin was moist but not damp, and there was not a drop of sweat on the skin-leather of his fatigue cap. When he got to Koongat Bridge he was like a racer after pract

r having been friendly to Boonda Broke, and to justify himself in his father's eyes. If he came through all right, then "the Governor"-as he called his father, with the friendly

a sound of the plain, the river, or jungle he did not know, and his ear was keen to balance 'twixt the false note and the true. He waited for the sound again. From that first call he could not be sure which had startled him-the ni

Broke's, the Dakoon's, or the segments of peoples belonging to none of these-highway robbers, cattle-stealers, or

rd or the rifle-barrel you cannot see and the poisoned wooden spear wh

nd steel. In his mind he saw a hundred men rise up from ambush, surround him, and cut him down. He saw himself firing a half-dozen shots, then drawing his sword and fighting till he fell; but he did fall in the end, and there was an end of it. It seemed like years while these visions passed thr

mner's Son, looking down sharply, could see nothing to either the right or left-no movement anywhere save the dim trees on the banks waving in the light wind

quarry the Little Men of the Jungle when they carried off the wife and daughter of a soldier of the Dakoon. The smell and the sound

t once, the call of the red bittern rang out the third time, louder th

up on all sides of him. Without a word he drove the excited horse at his assailants.

the language of Mandakan

" said a voice.

d the lad. "Let go." "Cut him

d twice

nd firing again, he called it out in a loud voice. His plunging horse had broken away fro

called, and suddenly a horseman appeared beside him, who clove through a native's head with a broadsword, and with a pistol fired at the fleeing figures; for Boonda Broke's men who were thus infesting the highway up to Koongat Bridge, and even beyond, up to the Bar of Balmud, hearing the newcomer shout the dreaded name of Pango Dooni, scattered for their lives, though they were yet twenty to two. One stood

turned t

s by the word of ou

er is brother-in-blood with Pango Dooni. I ride t

e Cumner's Son, another

" said he, "and hid also under my tongue. If you be from the Neck of Baroob yo

em, they vowed to each other, mingling their blood from dagger pricks i

e hillsman said: "If fathers be brothers-in

he was now brother-in-bloo