"Brother," said the Akasava chief, not without a touch of pompousness, "I have covered my bow with the skin of a monkey."
Tigili nodded gravely.
"My arrows are winged with the little clouds," he said in reply.
In this cryptic fashion they spoke for the greater part of an hour, and derived much profit therefrom.
In the shadow of the hut without lay a half-naked man, who seemed to sleep, his head upon his arm, his legs doubled up comfortably.
One of the Akasava guard saw him, and sought to arouse him with the butt of his spear, but he only stirred sleepily, and, thinking that he must be a man of Tigili's retinue, they left him.
When the king and the chief had finished their palaver, Tigili rose from the floor of the hut and went back to his canoe, and the chief of the Akasava stood on the bank of the river watching the craft as it went back the way it had come.
The sleeper rose noiselessly and took another path to the river. Just outside the town he had to cross a path of moonlit clearing, and a man challenged him.
This man was an Akasava warrior, and was armed, and the sleeper stood obedient to the summons.
"Who are you?"