Cumner's Son and Other South Sea Folk Part 5

One or two voices cried out; then from the people, and presently from the whole dark battalions, came the cry: "Long live Pango Dooni!"

Pango Dooni rode down with Tang-a-Dahit and Cushnan Di. He bade all but five hundred mounted men to lay down their arms. Then he put over them a guard of near a hundred of his own hors.e.m.e.n. Gathering the men from the rampart he did the same with these, reserving only one hundred to remain upon the walls under guard of ten hillsmen. Then, taking his own six hundred men and five hundred of the Dakoon's hors.e.m.e.n, he bade the gates to be opened, and with Cushnan Di marched out upon the town, leaving Tanga-Dahit and c.u.mner's Son in command at the Palace.

At least four thousand besiegers lay before the walls, and, far beyond, they could see the attack upon the Residency.

The gates of the Palace closed on the last of Pango Dooni's men, and with a wild cry they rode like a monstrous wave upon the rebel mob.

There was no preparation to resist the onset. The rush was like a storm out of the tropics, and dread of Pango Dooni's name alone was as death among them.

The hillsmen clove the besiegers through like a piece of pasteboard, and turning, rode back again through the broken ranks, their battle-call ringing high above the clash of steel. Again they turned at the Palace wall, and, gathering impetus, they rode at the detached and battered segments of the miserable horde, and once more cut them down, then furiously galloped towards the Residency.

They could hear one gun firing intermittently, and the roars of Boonda Broke's men. They did not call or cry till within a few hundred yards of the Residency Square. Then their battle-call broke forth, and Boonda Broke turned to see seven hundred bearing down on his ten thousand, the black flag with the yellow sunburst over them.

c.u.mner, the Governor, and McDermot heard the cry of the hillsmen, too, and took heart.

Boonda Broke tried to divide his force, so that half of them should face the hillsmen, and half the Residency; but there was not time enough; and his men fought as they were attacked, those in front against Pango Dooni, those behind against c.u.mner. The hillsmen rode upon the frenzied rebels, and were swallowed up by the great ma.s.s of them, so that they seemed lost. But slowly, heavily, and with ferocious hatred, they drove their hard path on. A head and shoulders dropped out of sight here and there; but the hillsmen were not counting their losses that day, and when Pango Dooni at last came near to Boonda Broke the men he had lost seemed found again, for it was like water to the thirsty the sight of this man.

But suddenly there was a rush from the Residency Square, and thirty men, under the command of c.u.mner, rode in with sabres drawn.

There was a sudden swaying movement of the shrieking ma.s.s between Boonda Broke and Pango Dooni, and in the confusion and displacement Boonda Broke had disappeared.

Panic and flight came after, and the hillsmen and the little garrison were masters of the field.

"I have paid the debt of the mare," said Pango Dooni, laughing.

"No debt is paid till I see the face of my son," answered c.u.mner anxiously.

Pango Dooni pointed with his sword. "In the Palace yard," said he.

"In the Palace yard, alive?" asked c.u.mner. Pango Dooni smiled. "Let us go and see."

c.u.mner wiped the sweat and dust and blood from his face, and turned to McDermot.

"Was I right when I sent the lad?" said he proudly. "The women and children are safe."

VI. CONCERNING THE DAUGHTER OF CUSHNAN DI

The British flag flew half-mast from the Palace dome, and two others flew behind it; one the black and yellow banner of the hillsmen, the other the red and white pennant of the dead Dakoon. In the Palace yard a thousand men stood at attention, and at their head was Cushnan Di with fifty hillsmen. At the Residency another thousand men encamped, with a hundred hillsmen and eighty English, under the command of Tang-a-Dahit and McDermot. By the Fountain of the Sweet Waters, which is over against the Tomb where the Dakoon should sleep, another thousand men were patrolled, with a hundred hillsmen, commanded by a kinsman of Pango Dooni. Hovering near were gloomy, wistful crowds of people, who drew close to the mystery of the House of Death, as though the soul of a Dakoon were of more moment than those of the thousand men who had fallen that day. Along the line of the Bazaar ranged another thousand men, armed only with krises, under the command of the heir of the late Dakoon, and with these were a hundred and fifty mounted hillsmen, watchful and deliberate. These were also under the command of a kinsman of Pango Dooni.

It was at this very point that the danger lay, for the nephew of the Dakoon, Gis-yo-Bahim, was a weak but treacherous man, ill-fitted to rule; a coward, yet ambitious; distrusted by the people, yet the heir to the throne. c.u.mner and Pango Dooni had placed him at this point for no other reason than to give him his chance for a blow, if he dared to strike it, at the most advantageous place in the city. The furtive hangers-on, cut-throats, mendicants, followers of Boonda Broke, and haters of the English, lurked in the Bazaars, and Gis-yo-Bahim should be tempted for the first and the last time. Crushed now, he could never rise again. Pango Dooni had carefully picked the hillsmen whom he had sent to the Bazaar, and their captain was the most fearless and the wariest fighter from the Neck of Baroob, save Pango Dooni himself.

Boonda Broke was abroad still. He had escaped from the slaughter before the Residency and was hidden somewhere in the city. There were yet in Mandakan ten thousand men who would follow him that would promise the most, and Boonda Broke would promise the doors of Heaven as a gift to the city, and the treasures of Solomon to the people, if it might serve his purposes. But all was quiet save where the mourners followed their dead to the great funeral pyres, which were set on three little hills just outside the city. These wailed as they pa.s.sed by. The smoke of the burnt powder had been carried away by a gentle wind, and in its place was the pervasive perfume of the peach and cherry trees, and the aroma of the gugan wood which was like cut sandal in the sun after a rain. In the homes of a few rich folk there was feasting also, for it mattered little to them whether Boonda Broke or Pango Dooni ruled in Mandakan, so that their wealth was left to them. But hundreds of tinkling little bells broke the stillness. These were carried by brown bare-footed boys, who ran lightly up and down the streets, calling softly: "Corn and tears and wine for the dead!" It was the custom for mourners to place in the hands of the dead a bottle of tears and wine, and a seed of corn, as it is written in the Proverbs of Dol:

"When thou journeyest into the Shadows, take not sweetmeats with thee, but a seed of corn and a bottle of tears and wine; that thou mayest have a garden in the land whither thou goest."

It was yet hardly night when the pyres were lighted on the little hills and a warm glow was thrown over all the city, made warmer by roseate-hued homes and the ruddy stones and velvety dust of the streets.

At midnight the Dakoon was to be brought to the Tomb with the Blue Dome. Now in the Palace yard his body lay under a canopy, the flags of Mandakan and England over his breast, twenty of his own naked body-guard stood round, and four of his high chiefs stood at his head and four at his feet, and little lads ran softly past, crying: "Corn and tears and wine for the dead!" And behind all these again were placed the dark battalions and the hillsmen. It went abroad through the city that Pango Dooni and c.u.mner paid great homage to the dead Dakoon, and the dread of the hillsmen grew less.

But in one house there had been no fear, for there, by the Aqueduct of the Failing Fountain, lived Cushnan Di, a fallen chief, and his daughter with the body like a trailing vine; for one knew the sorrow of dispossession and defeat and the arm of a leader of men, and the other knew Tang-a-Dahit and the soul that was in him.

This night, while yet there was an hour before the body of the dead Dakoon should go to the Tomb with the Blue Dome, the daughter of Cushnan Di lay watching for her door to open; for she knew what had happened in the city, and there was one whom her spirit longed for. An old woman sat beside her with hands clasped about her knees.

"Dost thou hear nothing?" said a voice from the bed. "Nothing but the stir of the mandrake trees, beloved."

"Nay, but dost thou not hear a step?"

"Naught, child of the heaven-flowers, but a dog's foot in the moss."

"Thou art sure that my father is safe?"

"The Prince is safe, angel of the high clouds. He led the hillsmen by the secret way into the Palace yard." There was silence for a moment, and then the girl's voice said again: "Hush! but there was a footstep--I heard a breaking twig."

Her face lighted, and the head slightly turned towards the door. But the body did not stir. It lay moveless, save where the bosom rose and fell softly, quivering under the white robe. A great wolf-dog raised its head at the foot of the bed and pointed its ears, looking towards the door.

The face of the girl was beautiful. A n.o.ble peace was upon it, and the eyes were like lamps of dusky fire, as though they held all the strength of the nerveless body. The love burning in them was not the love of a maid for a man, but that which comes after, through pain and trouble and wisdom. It was the look that lasts after death, the look shot forward from the Hereafter upon a living face which has looked into the great mystery, but has not pa.s.sed behind the curtains.

There was a knock upon the door, and, in response to a summons, Tang-a-Dahit stepped inside. A beautiful smile settled upon the girl's face, and her eyes brooded tenderly upon the young hillsman.

"I am here, Mami," said he.

"Friend of my heart," she answered. "It is so long!"

Then he told her how, through c.u.mner's Son, he had been turned from his visit two days before, and of the journey down, and of the fighting, and of all that had chanced.

She smiled, and a.s.sented with her eyes--her father had told her. "My father knows that thou dost come to me, and he is not angry," she said.

Then she asked him what was to be the end of all, and he shook his head.

"The young are not taken into counsel," he answered, "neither I nor c.u.mner's Son."

All at once her eyes brightened as though a current of light had been suddenly sent through them. "c.u.mner's Son," said she--"c.u.mner's Son, and thou--the future of Mandakan is all with ye; neither with c.u.mner, nor with Pango Dooni, nor with Cushnan Di. To the old is given counsel, and device, and wisdom, and holding; but to the young is given hope, and vision, and action, and building, and peace."

"c.u.mner's Son is without," said he. "May I fetch him to thee?"

She looked grave, and shrank a little, then answered yes.

"So strong, so brave, so young!" she said, almost under her breath, as the young man entered. c.u.mner's Son stood abashed at first to see this angelic head, so full of light and life, like nothing he had ever seen, and the nerveless, moveless body, like a flower with no roots.

"Thou art brave," said she, "and thy heart is without fear, for thou hast no evil in thee. Great things shall come to thee, and to thee," she added, turning to Tang-a-Dahit, "but by different ways."

Tang-a-Dahit looked at her as one would look at the face of a saint; and his fingers, tired yet with the swinging of the sword, stroked the white coverlet of her couch gently and abstractedly. Once or twice c.u.mner's Son tried to speak, but failed; and at last all he could say was: "Thou art good--thou art good!" and then he turned and stole quietly from the room.

At midnight they carried the Dakoon to the resting-place of his fathers.

A thousand torches gleamed from the Palace gates through the Street of Divers Pities, and along the Path by the Bazaar to the Tomb with the Blue Dome. A hundred hillsmen rode before, and a hundred behind, and between were two thousand soldiers of Mandakan on foot and fifty of the late Dakoon's body-guard mounted and brilliant in scarlet and gold.

Behind the gun-carriage, which bore the body, walked the nephew of the great Dakoon, then came a clear s.p.a.ce, and then Pango Dooni, and c.u.mner, and behind these twenty men of the artillery, at whose head rode McDermot and c.u.mner's Son.

As they pa.s.sed the Path by the Bazaar every eye among the hillsmen and among the handful of British was alert. Suddenly a savage murmuring among the natives in the Bazaar broke into a loud snarl, and it seemed as if a storm was about to break; but as suddenly, at a call from c.u.mner, the hillsmen, the British, and a thousand native soldiers, faced the Bazaar in perfect silence, their lances, swords, and rifles in a pose of menace. The whole procession stood still for a moment. In the pause the crowds in the Bazaar drew back, then came a loud voice calling on them to rescue the dead Dakoon from murderers and infidels; and a wave of dark bodies moved forward, but suddenly cowered before the malicious stillness of the hillsmen and the British, and the wave retreated.