Cumners Son and Other South Sea Folk | Page 9

one were odds that no man would care to take. It might be
that some of Pango Dooni's men lay between them and the Bar of
Balmud, but the chance was faint.
"By the hand of Heaven," said the hillsman, "if we reach to the Bar of
Balmud, these dogs shall eat their own heads for dinner!"
They set their horses in the way, and gave the sorrel and mare the bit
and spur. The beasts leaned again to their work as though they had just
come from a feeding-stall and knew their riders' needs. The men rode
light and free, and talked low to their horses as friend talks to friend.
Five miles or more they went so, and then the mare stumbled. She got
to her feet again, but her head dropped low, her nostrils gaped red and

swollen, and the sorrel hung back with her, for a beast, like a man, will
travel farther two by two than one by one. At another point where they
had a long view behind they looked back. Their pursuers were gaining.
Tang-a-Dahit spurred his horse on.
"There is one chance," said he, "and only one. See where the point juts
out beyond the great medlar tree. If, by the mercy of God, we can but
make it!"
The horses gallantly replied to call and spur. They rounded a curve
which made a sort of apse to the side of the valley, and presently they
were hid from their pursuers. Looking back from the thicket they saw
the plainsmen riding hard. All at once Tang-a-Dahit stopped.
"Give me the sorrel," said he. "Quick--dismount!" Cumner's Son did as
he was bid. Going a little to one side, the hillsman pushed through a
thick hedge of bushes, rolled away a rock, and disclosed an opening
which led down a steep and rough-hewn way to a great misty valley
beneath, where was never a bridle-path or causeway over the brawling
streams and boulders.
"I will ride on. The mare is done, but the sorrel can make the Bar of
Balmud."
Cumner's Son opened his mouth to question, but stopped, for the eyes
of the hillsman flared up, and Tang-a-Dahit said:
"My arm in blood has touched thy arm, and thou art in my hills and not
in thine own country. Thy life is my life, and thy good is my good.
Speak not, but act. By the high wall of the valley where no man bides
there is a path which leads to the Bar of Balmud; but leave it not,
whether it go up or down or be easy or hard. If thy feet be steady, thine
eye true, and thy heart strong, thou shalt come by the Bar of Balmud
among my people."
Then he caught the hand of Cumner's Son in his own and kissed him
between the eyes after the manner of a kinsman, and, urging him into
the hole, rolled the great stone into its place again. Mounting the sorrel

he rode swiftly out into the open, rounded the green point full in view
of his pursuers, and was hid from them in an instant. Then,
dismounting, he swiftly crept back through the long grass into the
thicket again, mounted the mare, and drove her at laboured gallop also
around the curve, so that it seemed to the plainsmen following that both
men had gone that way. He mounted the sorrel again, and loosing a
long sash from his waist drew it through the mare's bit. The mare,
lightened of the weight, followed well. When the plainsmen came to
the cape of green, they paused not by the secret place, for it seemed to
them that two had ridden past and not one.
The Son of Pango Dooni had drawn pursuit after himself, for it is the
law of the hills that a hillsman shall give his life or all that he has for a
brother-in-blood.
When Cumner's Son had gone a little way he understood it all! And he
would have turned back, but he knew that the hillsman had ridden far
beyond his reach. So he ran as swiftly as he could; he climbed where it
might seem not even a chamois could find a hold; his eyes scarcely
seeing the long, misty valley, where the haze lay like a vapour from
another world. There was no sound anywhere save the brawling water
or the lonely cry of the flute-bird. Here was the last refuge of the
hillsmen if they should ever be driven from the Neck of Baroob. They
could close up every entrance, and live unscathed; for here was land for
tilling, and wood, and wild fruit, and food for cattle.
Cumner's Son was supple and swift, and scarce an hour had passed ere
he came to