As the old man was led forward, the Nagas pointed to him with wild excitement, continually exclaiming, "The Eye! The Eye!"
Forrester asked Sher Jang to get from the people an explanation of the connection of this old man with the Nagas' refusal to march. The story, as told by the villager through the Naga head-man, was that the one-armed greybeard had been a brave warrior in his youth, and was one of a war party who, many years before, had ventured beyond the great waterfall. Of them all, only he had returned, without his right arm. When his people asked him what had happened to his companions, and how he had lost his arm, his only answer was "The Eye!" Ever since, his mind had been a blank. He could tell them nothing, had no recollection of what had happened; and the people had kept him with them, showing him the veneration which simple races often pay to the half-witted.
The white men were mystified. The story seemed incredible, yet there was the man in proof of it.
"None of the people have ever been beyond the fall since?" asked Forrester.
"None of us," was the reply, "but we have seen men go sometimes, and we have never known them to return. Yes: there was one who returned. He was fair of skin like these lords, and wore clothes like them. There were two who went, but only one returned. Some of our people saw him hasting by the lake near the fall, and the little men were running after him, but he escaped them, and went into the forest."
"Who are the little men?" Forrester asked.
"They are men like monkeys," replied the man, holding his hand about four feet from the ground to indicate their height. "They are the men who take the wood from us."
On further questioning, the men explained that the country beyond the falls was destitute of large trees, and the little men paid the villagers for timber cut in the forest. This timber was conveyed to a certain spot some distance short of the waterfall, and removed thence by the little men to their home in the mountains, which the villagers had never beheld.
"How long ago was the white man seen?" Forrester asked.
The man held up his hands with fingers outspread.