The deputations were sent. They met. They palavered for about half-an-hour with an air of sententious sincerity, then the leading chief of the mountaineer deputation cracked the crown of the leading chief of the Raturan deputation, and the two deputations spent the remainder of that day in fighting. Reinforcements came up on both sides. The skirmish became a pitched battle. Blood was shed lavishly, heads were broken beyond repair, and women, coming to the help of the men with the baskets of stones, were slain in considerable numbers, as well as little children who had an inconvenient but not uncommon habit of getting in the way of the combatants. At last the Raturans were driven into the impregnable swamps that bordered part of their country; their villages and crops were burned, and those of their women and children who had not escaped to the swamps were carried into slavery, while the aged of both sexes were slaughtered in cold blood.
It was a complete victory. We are inclined to think that the Mountain-men called it a “glorious” victory. Judging from the world’s history they probably did, and the mountain women ever afterwards were wont to tell their little ones of the prowess of their forefathers—of the skulls battered in and other deeds of heroism done—in that just and reasonable war!
As centuries rolled on, the old story came to be repeated again, and over again, with slight variations to suit the varying ages. In particular it came to be well understood, and asserted, that that unconquerable desire of the Raturans to take possession of the mountain-top was growing apace and had to be jealously watched and curbed.
In one of the centuries—we are not sure which—the Raturan savages made some advances into their swampy grounds and began to improve them. This region lay very remote from the Mountain-men’s villages, but, as it approached the mountain base in a round-about manner, and as the mountain-tops could be distinctly seen from the region, although well-nigh impassable swamps still lay between the reclaimed lands and the mountain base, these advances were regarded as another casus belli, and another war was waged, with practically the same results—damage to everybody concerned, and good to no one.
Thus was the game kept up until the chief Ongoloo began to strut his little hour upon the stage of time.
There are always men, savage as well as civilised, in every region and age, who march in advance of their fellows, either because of intellectual capacity or moral rectitude or both. Ongoloo was one of these. He did not believe in “war at any price.” He thought it probable that God lived in a state of peace, and argued that what was best for the Creator must naturally be best for the creature.
He therefore tried to introduce a peace-policy into Sugar-loaf Island. His efforts were not successful. The war-party was too strong for him. At last he felt constrained to give in to the force of public opinion and agreed to hold an unarmed palaver with the men of Ratura. The war-at-any-price party would have preferred an armed palaver, but they were overruled.
The Raturans chanced at this time to be in somewhat depressed circumstances, owing to a sickness which had carried off many of their best warriors and left their lands partly waste, so that their finances, if we may so express it were in a bad condition.
“Now is our chance—now or never,” thought the war-party, and pushed matters to extremity.
On the day appointed for the palaver, one of the most pugnacious of the Mountain-men got leave to open the deliberations.