“Yes, you may go—in peace!” said Ongoloo with sententious gravity, waving his band grandly to the retiring men of Ratura, and walking off with an air of profound solemnity, though he could not help laughing—in his arm, somewhere, as he had not a sleeve to do it in.
But the Raturans did not go in peace. They went away with bitter animosity in their hearts, and some of them resolved to have a brush with their old foes, come what might.
Savages do not, as a rule, go through the formality of declaring war by withdrawing ambassadors. They are much more prone to begin war with that deceptive act styled “a surprise.”
Smarting under the taunts of their foes, the Raturans resolved to make an attack on the enemy’s village that very night, but Ongoloo was more than a match for them. Suspecting their intentions, he stalked them when the shades of evening fell, heard all their plans while concealed among the long grass, and then, hastening home, collected his warriors.
It chanced that Zeppa had returned from one of his rambles at the time and was lying in his hut.
“Will you come out with us and fight?” demanded Ongoloo, entering abruptly.
The mention of fighting seemed to stir some chord which jarred in Zeppa’s mind, for he shook his head and frowned. It is possible that, if the savage had explained how matters stood, the poor madman might have consented, but the chief had not the time, perhaps not the will, for that. Turning quickly round, therefore, he went off as abruptly as he had entered.
Zeppa cared nothing for that. Indeed he soon forgot the circumstance, and, feeling tired, lay down to sleep.
Meanwhile Ongoloo marched away with a body of picked men to station himself in a narrow pass through which he knew that the invading foe would have to enter. He was hugely disgusted to be thus compelled to fight, after he had congratulated himself on having brought the recent palaver to so peaceful an issue. He resolved, however, only to give his enemies a serious fright, for he knew full well that if blood should flow, the old war-spirit would return, and the ancient suspicion and hatred be revived and intensified. Arranging his plans therefore, with this end in view, he resolved to take that peaceful, though thieving, humorist Wapoota, into his secret councils.
Summoning him, after the ambush had been properly arranged and the men placed, he said,—“Come here, you villain.”