"By the word of a hillsman, but thou shalt have thy will," said the chief. "We are seven hundred men—choose whom to fight."
"The oldest or the youngest," answered the man. "Pango Dooni or Cumner's
Son."
Before the chief had time to speak, Cumner's Son struck the man with the flat of his sword across the breast.
The man did not lift his arm, but looked at the lad steadily for a moment. "Let us speak together before we fight," said he, and to show his good faith he threw down his sword.
"Speak," said Cumner's Son, and laid his sword across the pommel of his saddle.
"Does a man when he dies speak his heart to the ears of a whole tribe?"
"Then choose another ear than mine," said Cumner's Son. "In war I have no secrets from my friends."
A look of satisfaction came into Pango Dooni's face. "Speak with the man alone," said he, and he drew back.
Cumner's Son drew a little to one side with the man, who spoke quickly and low in English.
"I have spoken the truth," said he. "I am Cushnan Di"—he drew himself up—"and once I had a city of my own and five thousand men, but a plague and then a war came, and the Dakoon entered upon my city. I left my people and hid, and changed myself that no one should know me, and I came to Mandakan. It was noised abroad that I was dead. Little by little I grew in favour with the Dakoon, and little by little I gathered strong men about me-two hundred in all at last. It was my purpose, when the day seemed ripe, to seize upon the Palace as the Dakoon had seized upon my little city. I knew from my father, whose father built a new portion of the Palace, of a secret way by the Aqueduct of the Failing Fountain, even into the Palace itself. An army could ride through and appear in the Palace yard like the mist-shapes from the lost legions. When I had a thousand men I would perform this thing, I thought.