"I had not thought of this. But it will do. It is as it should be—white will be happier with white. But ... will she stay until Ohto joins his fathers?"
The Major hesitated, then answered the sadly anxious question with a nod. He had no voice.
"Then she is yours ... after you have found a way to ring the Tribal Agong for her marriage. Ohto never spoke in vain. Ring the Agong first."
The Major's glance swept from Ahma to the lofty gong. His triumphant joy gave way to deepest dejection. He saw no way to fulfil the chief's requirement, and he turned despairingly to Terry, who had shouldered through the crowd and stood beside him.
The Hillmen had accepted Ohto's interpretation unquestioningly. Their chief had spoken. The unexpectedness of the new phase, the avowal of love by the tribe's adopted daughter for one of the outlanders, had appealed to the keen sense of the dramatic that is shared by all primitive peoples. Their brown skins coppered by the rosy glow of the setting sun, they stood in strained suspense awaiting the climax.
All but Pud-Pud. He jostled an avenue through the innermost ring of Hillmen and leaped out in front of Terry, brandishing a short blow tube he carried and laughing in shrill derision.
"Ya, white men! Now ring the Agong! Ring the Agong and get your woman! I saw! I watched! And I laughed because I knew the Agong would never ring again! Yeah! Now ring it!"
The Major was in no mood for finesse: with a vicious shove he sent the vindictive Pud-Pud sprawling, then turned to Terry, worriedly.
"What are we going to do?"
Terry shook his head, at a loss. This was a contingency he had not foreseen. He glanced penitently at the melancholy girl, at the old man who waited, swept the circle of tense faces, then resumed his hopeless contemplation of the gong overhead.