Cumners Son and Other South Sea Folk | Page 7

pistol snugly in his
right. He listened again. As he touched the sorrel with his knee he
thought he heard a sound ahead.
The sorrel sprang forward, sniffed the air, and threw up his head. His

feet struck the resounding timbers of the bridge, and, as they did so, he
shied; but Cumner'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 which had risen. A crocodile slipped
off a log into the water--he knew that sound; a rank odour came from
the river bank--he knew the smell of the hippopotamus.
These very things gave him new courage. Since he came from Eton to
Mandakan he had hunted often and well, and once he had helped to
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 of wild
life roused all the hunter in him. He had fear no longer; the primitive
emotion of fighting or self-defence was alive in him.
He had left the bridge behind by twice the horse's length, when, all at
once, the call of the red bittern rang out the third time, louder than
before; then again; and then the cry of a grey wolf came in response.
His peril was upon him. He put spurs to the sorrel. As he did so, dark
figures sprang up on all sides of him. Without a word he drove the
excited horse at his assailants. Three caught his bridle-rein, and others
snatched at him to draw him from his horse.
"Hands off!" he cried, in the language of Mandakan, and levelled his
pistol.
"He is English!" said a voice. "Cut him down!"
"I am the Governor's son," said the lad. "Let go." "Cut him down!"
snarled the voice again.
He fired twice quickly.
Then he remembered the tribe-call given his father by Pango Dooni.
Rising in his saddle and firing again, he called it out in a loud voice.
His plunging horse had broken away from two of the murderers; but
one still held on, and he slashed the hand free with his sword.

The natives were made furious by the call, and came on again, striking
at him with their krises. He shouted the tribe-call once more, but this
time it was done involuntarily. There was no response in front of him;
but one came from behind. There was clattering of hoofs on Koongat
Bridge, and the password of the clan came back to the lad, even as a
kris struck him in the leg and drew out again. Once again he 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
his ground, and it would have gone ill for Cumner's Son, for this thief
had him at fatal advantage, had it not been for the horseman who had
followed the lad from the forge-fire to Koongat Bridge. He stood up in
his stirrups and cut down with his broadsword, so that the blade was
driven through the head and shoulders of his foe as a woodsman splits a
log half through, and grunts with the power of his stroke.
Then he turned to the lad.
"What stranger calls by the word of our tribe?" he asked.
"I am Cumner's Son," was the answer, "and my father is
brother-in-blood with Pango Dooni. I ride to Pango Dooni for the
women and children's sake."
"Proof! Proof! If you be Cumner's Son, another word should be yours."
The Colonel's Son took out the bracelet from his breast. "It is safe hid
here," said he, "and hid also under my tongue. If you be from the Neck
of Baroob you will know it when I speak it;" and he spoke reverently
the sacred countersign.
By a little fire kindled in the road, the bodies of their foe beside them,
they vowed to each other, mingling their blood from dagger pricks in
the arm. Then they mounted again and rode towards the Neck of
Baroob.

In silence they rode awhile, and at last the hillsman said: "If fathers be
brothers-in-blood, behold it is good that sons be also."
By this the lad knew that he was now brother-in-blood to the son of
Pango Dooni.

III
THE CODE OF THE HILLS
"You travel near to Mandakan!" said the lad. "Do you ride with a
thousand