And they showed me him bound and knotted
To the base of a splintered tree,
Stripped to the sun and spat upon
And taunted—awaiting me.
And I saw her in the shadows—
But ... I might not know her, then—
A sneer for the kampong women—
And a jest for the kampong men.
. . . . . . . . . .
And thus in the days of my strength and pride,
From over the distant sea,
The White Man came in his open shame
And stole my love from me.
V
The next morn at the rising sun
The tom-toms roared their fill,
And echoed like rolling thunder
From hill to farthest hill.
And the birds of the jungle fluttered
And lifted and soared away,
And we dragged the fettered prisoner forth
To blink at the blinding day.
Full length and naked on the ground
We staked him foot and hand,
And we laughed in glee as we watched to see
The pest of the jungle-land.
Oh we laughed in glee as we watched to see
The little leeches swing,
End on end till they reached the flesh
Of the prostrate, struggling Thing.
Like river flies in the summer rains
They covered the White Man o’er—
Body and legs and arms and face,
Till the whole was a bleeding sore.
And the red streams ran from the crusted pools
And crimsoned the leafy ground,
And the scent of gore but brought the more
As the smell of game to the hound.
Hour by hour I watched him die,
Slowly day by day,
Hour by hour I watched the flesh
Sinking and turning gray: