Cumner & South Sea Folk, Complete

an!" said the lad. "Do you

thousand eyes to see; I travel alo

" said Cumner's Son. "Did you ride to be

en to the Dreadful Gates," answered Tang-a-Da

ung on the rear Palace wall, where the Dakoo

use; "and there is no peace. It is fighting and fighting, for honour, and glory,

s saddle as if to read the face

ed him furiously in the night ready to kill, who had cloven the head of a man like a p

found new thoughts; and these thoughts made him love the br

hen Boonda Broke is snapped in two like a pencil, when

in upon her bed, and she may not be moved, for the bones of her body are as the soft st

r through the t

, and I must go to her,

ings over in his mind; and all at once he felt that each man's acts must

etches of reed-beds and wastes of osiers they passed, and again by a path through the jungle where the briar-vines caught at them like eager

country. See, the dawn comes up! 'Twixt here and the Bar of Balmud our danger lies. A hundred men ma

he most perilous, lay through the long defile between the hills, flanked by boulders and rank scrub. Tang-a-Dahit pointed out the ways t

from behind rocks. No one of them has a heart truer than Boonda Broke's, the master of the carrion. We will go by the hills. The way is hard

ned to look back. The sun was up, and trailing rose and amber garments across the great Eastern arch. Their p

a-Dahit suddenly. "Now ind

lance Cumner's Son saw a bunch of horsemen

rty to one were odds that no man would care to take. It might be that some of Pa

, "if we reach to the Bar of Balmud, these

e, and talked low to their horses as friend talks to friend. Five miles or more they went so, and then the mare stumbled. She got to her feet again, but her head dropped low, her nostrils gaped red and swollen, and the sorrel

where the point juts out beyond the great medlar

apse to the side of the valley, and presently they were hid from their pursuers. Looking

pushed through a thick hedge of bushes, rolled away a rock, and disclosed an opening which led down a steep and rough-he

is done, but the sorrel ca

on, but stopped, for the eyes of the hi

not, but act. By the high wall of the valley where no man bides there is a path which leads to the Bar of Balmud; but leave it not, whether it go

pursuers, and was hid from them in an instant. Then, dismounting, he swiftly crept back through the long grass into the thicket again, mounted the mare, and drove her at laboured gallop also around the curve, so that it seemed to the plainsmen following that both men had gone that way. He

for it is the law of the hills that a hillsman shall g

ven a chamois could find a hold; his eyes scarcely seeing the long, misty valley, where the haze lay like a vapour from another world. There was no sound anywhere save the brawling water or the lonely cry of the flute-bird. He

he trembled, for he was worn and tired; but he remembered the last words of Tang-a-Dahit, and his fingers tightened their hold. At last, with a strain and a gasp, he drew himself up, and found himself on a shelf of rock with all the great valley spread out beneath him. A moment only he looked, resting himself, and then he searched for a way into the hi

e the huge defence. There was no living being to be s

called again the tribe-call of Pango Dooni

said he. "Tang-a-Dahit rides for his life to the

friend," said a scowling hillsman, ad

Pango Dooni, and told what had happened. Even as he spoke the hillsmen gave the word, and two score me

lsman turned

el," said he. "Come, ea

ngo Dooni bides, and there only wil

help. You shall keep your word. Though the sun ride fast towards n

ermit's cave, and they rested not there; but it was noon and no more when

hillsman ran an arm around his shoulder. The lad put by the arm, and drew him self up. He was most pale. Pango Dooni stood loo

he bugle blows in the Palace

eat chief started. "The voice I

the lad, and once more he s