"Got his money, all right," said one of the group that watched him.
The savage halted, and grinned widely at each in turn. "Me got," he announced proudly. "Mucho dinero. Mucho mucho dinero. Me got." He could scarcely contain his joy.
One of the watchers growled. "I'm not in favior," said he, "of payin' gu-gus for killin' white men, no matter whether they're white or black. It's a catchin' habit." It was the judicial soldier. He swung his lean bulk toward the grinning little man. "Now you've got it," he commanded, "git!"
The savage, half-comprehending, turned and passed down the path they opened for him, and down the sun-beaten, dusty street, where the silent people fell away before him as if he carried pestilence. And so they saw the last of him, making for those distant, cloud-hung hills of his, moving clumsily but swiftly across the paddies at his shuffling trot, while the price of a man's rebellion bobbed, and jingled dully at his back.
CHAPTER II
GOD'S LITTLE DEVILS
I was back in that ancient temple of Tzin Piaôu. My old heathen priest, half reclining on his hollowed slab of stone, was looking at me with a spark of laughter in his keen old eyes.
"Have you seen for yourself?" he asked.
I nodded.
"And how," he asked me, "do you like to look at the Games of the Little Gods?"