of me. Every time she dropped the head I
slewed her round and made her lift it up again. And the old cook-devil
trotted astern o' us. When we came close to the town I says to
Le-jennabon:
"'Do you want to live?"
"Yes," says she in a voice like a whisper.
"'Then sing," says I, "sing loud--
"marriage hides the tricks of lovers,"
And she sang it in a choky kind of quaver.
'There was a great rush of people to see the procession. They stood in a
line on both sides of the path and stared and said nothin'.
'Presently we comes to where all the Likieb chief's people were
quartered. They knew the head and ran back for their rifles, but my
crowd in the village was too strong, and, o'course, sided with me, and
took away their guns. Then the crowd gathers round my place, and I
makes Le-jennabon hold up the head and sing again--sing that devil's
chant.
"'Listen," I says to the people, "listen to my wife singing a love-song."
Then I takes the thing wet and bloody, and slings it into the middle of
the Likieb people, and gave Le-ennabon a shove and sent her inside.'
I was thinking what would be the best thing to say, and could only
manage 'It's a bad business, Ned.'
'Bad! That's where you're wrong,' and, rising, Ned brushed the sand off
the legs of his pyjamas. 'It's just about the luckiest thing as could ha'
happened. Ye see, it's given Le-jennabon a good idea of what may
happen to her if she ain't mighty correct. An' it's riz me alot in the
esteem of the people generally as a man who hez business principles.'
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