Piang led hastily down the slope of the forested plateau. He went through the brush like a scared deer, till they hit the trail again.
“This is it — the path to the Government station,” he said, in great relief. “We must have lost it back at the ravine. I have not been this far back in Laos, many times.”
Farris asked, “Piang, what is hunati? This Change that you were talking about?”
The guide became instantly less voluble. “It is a rite of worship.” He added, with some return of his cocksureness, “These tribesmen are very ignorant. They have not been to mission school, as I have.”
“Worship of what?” Farris asked. “The great ones, you said. Who are they?”
Piang shrugged and lied readily. “I do not know. In all the great forest, there are men who can become hunati, it is said. How, I do not know.”
Farris pondered, as he tramped onward. There had been something uncanny about those tribesmen. It had been almost a suspension of animation — but not quite. Only an incredible slowing down.
What could have caused it? And what, possibly, could be the purpose of it?
“I should think,” he said, “that a tiger or snake would make short work of a man in that frozen condition.”
Piang shook his head vigorously. “No. A man who is hunati is safe — at least, from beasts. No beast would touch him.”