Carefully the chief stood up, making a mound of sand and letting his son's head rest there. "Then save him," he said finally. "Save him and you can return to your people."
A very old Mandmooran, far older than the chief, a skin-puckered, limping, hunch-backed, rheumy-eyed, gray-skinned Mandmooran, approached the chief and jabbered excitedly in their own language. The chief jabbered back at him and the old man raised his voice. The chief shouted him down. Shrugging but smiling, the old man wandered off to a hillock of sand, threw his arms up at the Lord Sun, and began a weird, wailing chant.
"Shaman say," the chief told Jane, "yours is bad medicine."
Jane didn't answer. She went down on one knee near the injured prince. It almost made her ill to stare at his torn, mangled arm. She was no nurse. She knew first aid, but that was all. Still, anything was better than the fatalistic Mandmooran attitude.
"Shaman say," the chief went on, "we offer sacrifice to wrath of Lord Sun. For long time our people no offer sacrifice in human form. Human sacrifice now, at moment of trial, work. So say shaman."
Turning, the chief shouted something. Three spearmen stalked within the circle around the Earthmen and came out with the uniformed figure of the corporal. The ancient shaman jabbered excitedly, but the chief did not look happy.
Sid Masters came brawling through the ring of spearmen, fighting clear with flailing arms and legs. "Wait a minute, chief!" he cried. "Who's running the show round here, you or that magician?"
The shaman jabbered, but the chief silenced him with a gesture. "I am chief of the Mandmoora," he said slowly.
"The girl is trying to save your son's life. Is that the thanks we get—what you're going to do with the corporal?"