Greenoak listened to all this—and more—in silent contempt. He was getting rather tired of it, and expected that they would be getting the same directly, and would go. But the most truculent of them, a huge, red-smeared brute of well-nigh gigantic proportions, lunged forward and snatched hold of the double gun which he held in his left hand, attempting with a quick powerful jerk to wrest it away.
He did not succeed. In a twinkling the muzzle of Whites. Greenoak’s heavy revolver caught him fair and square between the eyes, with such force that the impact alone was almost enough to brain him, apart from the roar of the detonation which immediately followed. The huge barbarian, his head blown to atoms, crashed to the ground like a felled tree.
For a moment there was a tense and deathly silence. Greenoak, still holding the pistol pointed, had taken a couple of paces backward. His grey eyes were gleaming like steel, and his whole aspect was cool and dangerous. The time for indifference was past, he had decided; that for action had come; and the man who had ventured to lay a hand on him had paid for his daring with his life. At that moment he himself hardly expected to escape with his, but it would go terribly hard with several, before, in their weight of numbers, they should succeed in taking it. Now, he wasted no word. His silence, the lightning-like promptitude with which he had acted, and with which he would be ready to act again, as they well knew, were more awe-inspiring than mere verbal warning. And then there was the prestige of his personality.
Upon the silence broke forth a deep-toned, vengeful growl that was ominous. Then it suddenly died down. A voice behind him spoke.
“It is Kulondeka I see.”
“It is,” answered Greenoak, not turning his head. “And I think, son of the Great Chief, that these had better go home. It is not a healthy amusement for any man to try and snatch my gun out of my hand.”
At these words, cool and contemptuous, a new outburst of wrath went up, and the excited savages began to crowd up nearer, clamouring that Kulondeka should be given up to their vengeance. Some in the background raised the war-cry. It was taken up, and, gathering volume, sounded back from the hills, whence now other bands were hurrying to the scene. The chief’s son stepped to the side of Harley Greenoak and threw an arm around his shoulders.
“See. We are brothers,” he said. “The Great Chief is the father of both.”
Again there was a silence, broken immediately by a voice.
“Au! The son of the Great Chief is bewitched. This Kulondeka is the eyes and ears of the whites—here, everywhere. How then can he, too, be the son of the Great Chief?” And a fresh outburst greeted the words.