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Terabon saw Palura writhing, twisting, and working his way among the fighting mass. He heard a sharp bark: "Back, boys!" Four or five men stumbled back and two rolled out of the way of the feet of the policeman. It flashed to Terabon what had been done.
Terabon heard a woman at a near-by table making her protest against the policeman out in front. No other topic was more than mentioned, and the buzz and burr of voices vied with the sound of the band till it ended. Then there was a hush. "Palura!" a whisper rippled in all directions.
They knew the Committee of 100 would make him their next chief and a man under whom it would be a credit to be a cop. Terabon, just before dawn, returned toward Mousa Slough. As he did so, from a dull corner a whisper greeted him: "Say, Terabon, is it straight, Palura killed up?" "Sure thing!" "Then Mendova's sure gone to hell!" Hilt Despard the river pirate cried.
She heard a number of men and women talking in near-by boats, and the few words she heard indicated that the river people had a pretty morsel of gossip in the killing of Palura. She heard men rustling through the weeds and switch willows of the boatmen's pathway, and she hailed; she was now a true river woman, though she did not know it.
They had succeeded in getting the policeman into the huge den of vice, where he could not legally be without a warrant, where Palura could kill him and escape once more on the specious plea of self-defence. Terabon saw the grin of perfect hate on Palura's face as both his hands came up with automatics in them a two-handed gunman with his prey.
She regarded the previous night's entertainment with less indifference now; something about the calm of that broad river affected her. She realized that watching the killing of Palura had given her a shock so deep that now she was trembling with the weakness of horror.
Then Daisy disappeared and Nelia was left to her own devices. She was vexed and disappointed. She knew nothing of the war in Mendova. Politics had never engaged her attention, and the significance of the artistic killing of Palura did not appear to her mind.
Rasba, frankly curious about the man who wrote for newspapers for a living, listened to accounts of an odd and entertaining occupation. He asked about the Palura shooting which everyone was talking about, and when Terabon described it as he had witnessed it, Rasba shook his head. "Now they'll close up that big market of sin?" he asked. "They've all scattered around."
Groups of men and women were scattered along both the slough and the river banks, talking earnestly and seriously. Rasba, bound up town to buy supplies, heard the name of Palura on many lips; the policemen on their beats waltzed their heavy sticks about in debonair skilfulness; and stooped, rat-like men passing by, touched their hats nervously to the august bluecoats.
Palura supplied entertainment and excitement for the whole community, and this happened to be one of his nights of special effort. Personally, Palura was in a temper. Captain Dalkard, of the Mendova Police, had been caught between the Citizens' Committee and Palura's frequenters. There were 100 citizens in the committee, and Palura's frequenters were unnamed, but familiar enough in local affairs.
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