Cumners Son and Other South Sea Folk | Page 5

stud."
The Colonel swung round in his chair and stared mutely at the lad. He
was only eighteen years old, but of good stature, well-knit, and straight
as a sapling.
Seeing that no one answered him, but sat and stared incredulously, he
laughed a little, frankly and boyishly. "The kris of Boonda Broke is for
the hearts of every one of us," said he. "He may throw it soon--
to-night--to-morrow. No man can leave here--all are needed; but a boy
can ride; he is light in the saddle, and he may pass where a man would
be caught in a rain of bullets. I have ridden the sorrel of the Dakoon

often; he has pressed it on me; I will go to the master of his stud, and I
will ride to the Neck of Baroob."
"No, no," said one after the other, getting to his feet, "I will go."
The Governor waved them down. "The lad is right," said he, and he
looked him closely and proudly in the eyes. "By the mercy of God, you
shall ride the ride," said he. "Once when Pango Dooni was in the city,
in disguise, aye, even in the Garden of the Dakoon, the night of the
Dance of the Yellow Fire, I myself helped him to escape, for I stand for
a fearless robber before a cowardly saint." His grey moustache and
eyebrows bristled with energy as he added: "The lad shall go. He shall
carry in his breast the bracelet with the red stone that Pango Dooni gave
me. On the stone is written the countersign that all hillsmen heed, and
the tribe-call I know also."
"The danger--the danger--and the lad so young!" said McDermot; but
yet his eyes rested lovingly on the boy.
The Colonel threw up his head in anger. "If I, his father, can let him go,
why should you prate like women? The lad is my son, and he shall win
his spurs--and more, and more, maybe," he added.
He took from his pocket Pango Dooni's gift and gave it to the lad, and
three times he whispered in his ear the tribe-call and the countersign
that he might know them. The lad repeated them three times, and, with
his finger, traced the countersign upon the stone.
That night he rode silently out of the Dakoon's palace yard by a quiet
gateway, and came, by a roundabout, to a point near the Residency.
He halted under a flame-tree, and a man came out of the darkness and
laid a hand upon his knee.
"Ride straight and swift from the Kimar Gate. Pause by the Koongat
Bridge an hour, rest three hours at the Bar of Balmud, and pause again
where the roof of the Brown Hermit drums to the sorrel's hoofs. Ride
for the sake of the women and children and for your own honour. Ride

like a Cumner, lad."
The last sound of the sorrel's hoofs upon the red dust beat in the
Colonel's ears all night long, as he sat waiting for news from the Palace,
the sentinels walking up and down, the orderly at the door, and Boonda
Broke plotting in the town.

II
"REST AT THE KOONGAT BRIDGE AN HOUR"
There was no moon, and but few stars were shining. When Cumner's
Son first set out from Mandakan he could scarcely see at all, and he
kept his 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
natives lying under trees or rising from their mats to note the flying
horseman. Lights flickered here and there in the houses and by the
roadside. A late traveller turned a cake in the ashes or stirred some rice
in a calabash; an anxious mother put some sandalwood on the coals 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 the smith languidly
beating iron into shape, while dark figures sat on the floor near by, and
smoked and murmured to each other.
These last showed alertness at the sound of the flying sorrel's hoofs,
and all at once a tall, keen-eyed horseman sprang to the broad doorway
and strained 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 vaulted into the saddle. At a word his chestnut
mare got away with telling stride in pursuit of the unknown rider,
passing up the Gap of Mandakan like a ghost.
Cumner's Son had a start by about half a mile, but Tang-a-Dahit rode a
mare that had once belonged to Pango Dooni, and Pango Dooni