Cumner's Son and Other South Sea Folk Part 4

"And you?" asked Pango Dooni.

"I come to hold the road against Pango Dooni, as the Dakoon bade me."

Pango Dooni laughed. "Your words are large," said he. "What could you, one man, do against Pango Dooni and his hillsman?"

"I could answer the Dakoon here or elsewhere, that I kept the road till the hill-wolves dragged me down."

"We be the wolves from the hills," answered Pango Dooni. "You would scarce serve a sc.r.a.p of flesh for one hundred, and we are seven."

"The wolves must rend me first," answered the man, and he spat upon the ground at Pango Dooni's feet.

A dozen men started forward, but the chief called them back.

"You are no coward, but a fool," said he to the horseman. "Which is it better: to die, or to turn with us and save c.u.mner and the English, and serve Pango Dooni in the Dakoon's Palace?"

"No man knows that he must die till the stroke falls, and I come to fight and not to serve a robber mountaineer."

Pango Dooni's eyes blazed with anger. "There shall be no fighting, but a yelping cur shall be hung to a tree," said he.

He was about to send his men upon the stubborn horseman when the fellow said:

"If you be a man you will give me a man to fight. We were two hundred.

If it chance that one of a company shall do as the Dakoon hath said, then is all the company absolved; and beyond the mists we can meet the Dakoon with open eyes and unafraid when he saith, 'Did ye keep your faith?'"

"By the word of a hillsman, but thou shalt have thy will," said the chief. "We are seven hundred men--choose whom to fight."

"The oldest or the youngest," answered the man. "Pango Dooni or c.u.mner's Son."

Before the chief had time to speak, c.u.mner's Son struck the man with the flat of his sword across the breast.

The man did not lift his arm, but looked at the lad steadily for a moment. "Let us speak together before we fight," said he, and to show his good faith he threw down his sword.

"Speak," said c.u.mner's Son, and laid his sword across the pommel of his saddle.

"Does a man when he dies speak his heart to the ears of a whole tribe?"

"Then choose another ear than mine," said c.u.mner's Son. "In war I have no secrets from my friends."

A look of satisfaction came into Pango Dooni's face. "Speak with the man alone," said he, and he drew back.

c.u.mner's Son drew a little to one side with the man, who spoke quickly and low in English.

"I have spoken the truth," said he. "I am Cushnan Di"--he drew himself up--"and once I had a city of my own and five thousand men, but a plague and then a war came, and the Dakoon entered upon my city. I left my people and hid, and changed myself that no one should know me, and I came to Mandakan. It was noised abroad that I was dead. Little by little I grew in favour with the Dakoon, and little by little I gathered strong men about me-two hundred in all at last. It was my purpose, when the day seemed ripe, to seize upon the Palace as the Dakoon had seized upon my little city. I knew from my father, whose father built a new portion of the Palace, of a secret way by the Aqueduct of the Failing Fountain, even into the Palace itself. An army could ride through and appear in the Palace yard like the mist-shapes from the lost legions. When I had a thousand men I would perform this thing, I thought.

"But day by day the Dakoon drew me to him, and the thing seemed hard to do, even now before I had the men. Then his sickness came, and I could not strike an ailing man. When I saw how he was beset by traitors, in my heart I swore that he should not suffer by my hands. I heard of your riding to the Neck of Baroob--the men of Boonda Broke brought word. So I told the Dakoon, and I told him also that Boonda Broke was ready to steal into his Palace even before he died. He started up, and new life seemed given him. Calling his servants, he clothed himself, and he came forth and ordered out his troops. He bade me take my men to keep the road against Pango Dooni. Then he ranged his men before the Palace, and scattered them at points in the city to resist Boonda Broke.

"So I rode forth, but I came first to my daughter's bedside. She lies in a little house not a stone's throw from the Palace, and near to the Aqueduct of the Falling Fountain. Once she was beautiful and tall and straight as a bamboo stem, but now she is in body no more than a piece of silken thread. Yet her face is like the evening sky after a rain.

She is much alone, and only in the early mornings may I see her. She is cared for by an old woman of our people, and there she bides, and thinks strange thoughts, and speaks words of wisdom.

"When I told her what the Dakoon bade me do, and what I had sworn to perform when the Dakoon was dead, she said:

"'But no. Go forth as the Dakoon hath bidden. Stand in the road and oppose the hillsmen. If c.u.mner's Son be with them, thou shalt tell him all. If he speak for the hillsmen and say that all shall be well with thee, and thy city be restored when Pango Dooni sits in the Palace of the Dakoon, then shalt thou join with them, that there may be peace in the land, for Pango Dooni and the son of Pango Dooni be brave strong men. But if he will not promise for the hillsmen, then shalt thou keep the secret of the Palace, and abide the will of G.o.d."'

"Dost thou know Pango Dooni's son?" asked the lad, for he was sure that this man's daughter was she of whom Tang-a-Dahit had spoken.

"Once when I was in my own city and in my Palace I saw him. Then my daughter was beautiful, and her body was like a swaying wand of the boolda tree. But my city pa.s.sed, and she was broken like a trailing vine, and the young man came no more."

"But if he came again now?"

"He would not come."

"But if he had come while she lay there like a trailing vine, and listened to her voice, and thought upon her words and loved her still.

If for her sake he came secretly, daring death, wouldst thou stand--"

The man's eyes lighted. "If there were such truth in any man," he interrupted, "I would fight, follow him, and serve him, and my city should be his city, and the knowledge of my heart be open to his eye."

c.u.mner's Son turned and called to Pango Dooni and his son, and they came forward. Swiftly he told them all. When he had done so the man sprang from his horse, and taking off the thin necklet of beaten gold he wore round his throat, without a word he offered it to Tang-a-Dahit, and Tang-a-Dahit kissed him on the cheek and gave him the thick, loose chain of gold he wore.

"For this was it you risked your life going to Mandakan," said Pango Dooni, angrily, to his son; "for a maid with a body like a withered gourd." Then all at once, with a new look in his face, he continued softly: "Thou hast the soul of a woman, but thy deeds are the deeds of a man. As thy mother was in heart so art thou."

Day was breaking over Mandakan, and all the city was a tender pink.

Tower and minaret were like inverted cups of ruddy gold, and the streets all velvet dust, as Pango Dooni, guided by Cushnan Di, halted at the wood of wild peaches, and a great thicket near to the Aqueduct of the Failing Fountain, and looked out towards the Palace of the Dakoon. It was the time of peach blossoms, and all through the city the pink and white petals fell like the gay crystals of a dissolving sunrise. Yet there rose from the midst of it a long, rumbling, intermittent murmur, and here and there marched columns of men in good order, while again disorderly bands ran hither and hither with krises waving in the sun, and the red turban of war wound round their heads.

They could not see the front of the Palace, nor yet the Residency Square, but, even as they looked, a cannonade began, and the smoke of the guns curled through the showering peach-trees. Hoa.r.s.e shoutings and cries came rolling over the pink roofs, and c.u.mner's Son could hear through all the bugle-call of the artillery.

A moment later Cushnan Di was leading them through a copse of pawpaw trees to a secluded garden by the Aqueduct, overgrown with vines and ancient rose trees, and cherry shrubs. After an hour's labour with spades, while pickets guarded all approach, an opening was disclosed beneath the great flag-stones of a ruined building. Here was a wide natural corridor overhung with stalact.i.tes, and it led on into an artificial pa.s.sage which inclined gradually upwards till it came into a mound above the level by which they entered. Against this mound was backed a little temple in the rear of the Palace. A dozen men had remained behind to cover up the entrance again. When these heard Pango Dooni and the others in the Palace yard they were to ride straight for a gate which should be opened to them.

There was delay in opening the stone door which led into the temple, but at last they forced their way. The place was empty, and they rode through the Palace yard, pouring out like a stream of spectral hors.e.m.e.n from the altar of the temple. Not a word was spoken as Pango Dooni and his company galloped towards the front of the Palace. Hundreds of the Dakoon's soldiers and terrified people who had taken refuge in the great court-yard, ran screaming into corners, or threw themselves in terror upon the ground. The walls were lined with soldiers, but not one raised his hand to strike--so sudden was the coming of the dreaded hillsman.

They knew him by the black flag and the yellow sunburst upon it.

Presently Pango Dooni gave the wild battle-call of his tribe, and every one of his seven hundred answered him as they rode impetuously to the Palace front. Two thousand soldiers of the Dakoon, under command of his nephew, Gis-yo-Bahim, were gathered there. They were making ready to march out and defend the Palace. When they saw the flag and heard the battle-cry there was a movement backward, as though this handful of men were an overwhelming army coming at them. Scattered and disorderly groups of men swayed here and there, and just before the entrance of the Palace was a wailing group, by which stood two priests with their yellow robes and bare shoulders, speaking to them. From the walls the soldiers paused from resisting the swarming herds without.

"The Dakoon is dead!" cried Tang-a-Dahit.

As if in response came the wailing death-cry of the women of the Palace through the lattice windows, and it was taken up by the discomfited crowd before the Palace door.

"The Lord of all the Earth, the great Dakoon, is dead."

Pango Dooni rode straight upon the group, who fled at his approach, and, driving the priests indoors, he called aloud:

"The Dakoon is living. Fear not!"

For a moment there was no reply, and he waved his men into place before the Palace, and was about to ride down upon the native army, but c.u.mner's Son whispered to him, and an instant after the lad was riding alone upon the dark legions. He reined in his horse not ten feet away from the irregular columns.

"You know me," said he. "I am c.u.mner's Son. I rode into the hills at the Governor's word to bring a strong man to rule you. Why do ye stand here idle? My father, your friend, fights with a hundred men at the Residency. Choose ye between Boonda Broke, the mongrel, and Pango Dooni, the great hillsman. If ye choose Boonda Broke, then shall your city be levelled to the sea, and ye shall lose your name as a people. Choose!"