“Thou see’st,” he said coldly, as he now approached the crestfallen chief, “how ill-advised thou hast been not to give heed to all my warnings. I could have slain thee earlier in the fight; I could have killed thee now, as I did thy friend there; but I have spared thy life. It is not for thine own sake, but that thou mayest bear a message to thy master, and witness to him of that which thou hast seen and warn him once more of the futility of warring against us, the allies of the king. Dost thou understand?”
The other cast a murderous scowl upon Monella, but made no answer for a moment. Then, after reflection, he said in a dogged, surly tone,
“So be it. But thou must give thy message quickly and let me go; for thou hast hurt me sore and the blood flows fast——”
“We will see to thy wound,” Monella replied composedly. “Let me bind it up till we get to the king’s palace; there it shall be seen to farther.”
And Dakla, reluctantly, and with an ill grace, submitted to have his wound bound up by his enemy, who, before commencing, took away the other’s dagger.
“I cannot trust thee with these playthings,” he observed. “Thou art of the wolf tribe, Dakla.”
Meanwhile, the officer and men of their guard had come down to the lower terrace, with Templemore and Elwood, and were looking in awe and horror upon the outcome of the fight—if so one-sided an encounter could be so called. On Monella and the two young men they gazed in wonder; and, gradually, they drew away from them in fear, from that moment treating them with even greater deference than before.
Monella despatched Abla to summon more soldiers from the king’s palace to bring down the dead and wounded; and himself set about attending to the latter, first handing Dakla over to Templemore.
“Look you!” said Jack to his prisoner, “if you attempt to escape, I shall not kill you, but hurt your other arm; and, if that does not stop you, I shall hurt your leg, and I know that that will. Do you follow me?”
Dakla nodded a sour assent; then stood looking with evident surprise at the trouble Monella was now taking with some of his late enemies. Such singular behaviour he did not understand, and he shrugged his shoulders in contempt.