Pango Dooni laughed. "Your words are large," said he. "What could you, one man, do against Pango Dooni and his hillsman?"
"I could answer the Dakoon here or elsewhere, that I kept the road till the hill-wolves dragged me down."
"We be the wolves from the hills," answered Pango Dooni. "You would scarce serve a scrap of flesh for one hundred, and we are seven."
"The wolves must rend me first," answered the man, and he spat upon the ground at Pango Dooni's feet.
A dozen men started forward, but the chief called them back.
"You are no coward, but a fool," said he to the horseman. "Which is it better: to die, or to turn with us and save Cumner and the English, and serve Pango Dooni in the Dakoon's Palace?"
"No man knows that he must die till the stroke falls, and I come to fight and not to serve a robber mountaineer."
Pango Dooni's eyes blazed with anger. "There shall be no fighting, but a yelping cur shall be hung to a tree," said he.
He was about to send his men upon the stubborn horseman when the fellow said:
"If you be a man you will give me a man to fight. We were two hundred. If it chance that one of a company shall do as the Dakoon hath said, then is all the company absolved; and beyond the mists we can meet the Dakoon with open eyes and unafraid when he saith, 'Did ye keep your faith?'"