Her voice rose loudly, her arms were spread to the skies. Behind her the serried women echoed assent. The war-men moved a little, to and fro. “Talk for us, O Saran!”
Marzumat’s voice went on. “Men may take other men. If women, fighting side by side with war-men are killed, they are killed. Mao-Tan says, ‘It cannot be helped.’ But men may not take women and bind them and say to them, ‘Come!’ or ‘Go!’ Mao-Tan!—Mao-Tan!”
Saran faced Marzumat. He threw out his hands. “We took trouble, O Marzumat! We set up a stone and burned food upon it, and poured drink for Mao-Tan. We danced and sang before her. Then we did the same for In-Tan. In-Tan will keep Mao-Tan from being angry. Otherwise she might be angry for a while! But we saw In-Tan sitting like an eagle upon a tree and heard him talking like the wind. He said, O Marzumat, that valley people were his people, and that Mao-Tan was not angry!”
The war-men made a deep, corroborating sound. They had seen the eagle and heard the whistling and searching noise, and Saran’s imagination leading, they had divined the words. A black-bearded man, next to Saran in moral weight, gave articulate testimony. “O women of the valley! In-Tan said that Mao-Tan and he held in hatred other-people, and cared not what befell them, whether they were women or whether they were men!”
Saran continued. “We take men to work for us; why should you not have women to work for you and do as you tell them? They are not our men. They are not our women. Other-group-men, other-group-women! Old Bhuto says that, long-time-ago, it was a new thing to make other-men work for us and be our herdsmen. At first, Bhuto says, we had men who did not like that. But soon they felt like the rest of us.—We thought, O Marzumat, that we would please you! O women of the valley! they can carry water for you and grind the corn. It is pleasant to rest while another works! Many things are right when they are other-people. They will call you ‘mistress’ and do as you tell them—”
The body of the valley women seemed slightly to sway. Two or three voices were lifted. “Let us take them! Let us keep them! There grows so much work to do!” The women and the war-men seemed to slant toward each other.
The black-bearded man spoke again in a loud and cheerful voice. “They are riches, O women! It is pleasant to be saved weariness. It is sweeter than honey and like the wearing of ornaments to sit and see other-people do what we bid! Now men have the most ornaments and rest longer under the trees!”
A woman burst into laughter. “Mao-Tan knows that that is so!”
But Marzumat spoke again. “Men take other-men. But women have not taken other-women. Now, to-day, shall men lay hands upon women and cry, ‘Our prize and our riches’?”
“If we took them, O Marzumat, O women, did we not take them for you? It is your bidding that they will do! They are your prize and your riches! Take them now, and is it not as if you had taken them yonder”—he gestured with his spear toward the purple mountain—“taken them yonder yourselves, and brought them to the valley?”