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Had they been armed, it is probable that the palaver would have closed abruptly at this point. Seeing that the relations between the parties were "strained" almost to the breaking-point, one of the less warlike among the Ratura chiefs caught his own spokesman by the nape of the neck, and hurled him back among his comrades.
The very blood in the veins of all stood still. Their limbs refused to move. Away over the rolling plain went the horrid sound till it gained the mountain where, after being buffeted from cliff to crag, it finally died out far up among the rocky heights. "A device of the Ratura dogs to frighten us," growled Ongoloo to those nearest him. "Come, follow me, and remember, not a sound till I shout."
Sometimes on these occasions he would remain away for, perhaps, two or three days, having totally forgotten the singing class, to the great disappointment of the children. One night, while he was thus absent, the men of Ratura delivered the attack which they had long meditated.
"I know it, chief." "Well, go there; hide yourself, and get ready for a screech. When you see the Ratura dogs come in sight, give it out once only once, and if you don't screech well, I'll teach you how to do it better afterwards. Wait then till you hear and see me and my men come rushing down the track, and then screech a second time. Only once, mind! but let it be long and strong.
At last he felt constrained to give in to the force of public opinion and agreed to hold an unarmed palaver with the men of Ratura. The war-at-any-price party would have preferred an armed palaver, but they were overruled.
"We will not think of it" answered the accommodating man of Ratura. "Bah! you may go you peace-loving cowards," said the disappointed mountaineer, turning on his heel in bitter disappointment.
One roar from the maniac sent these flying like chaff before the wind. It must be added, however, for the credit of the men of Ratura, that Ongoloo and his warriors had backed up their new leader gallantly. When Wapoota saw his deliverer, he ran to him, panting, and said "Come with me this way Lippy is here!" That was sufficient.
The Raturans replied that it had never entered into their heads either to covet or to look at the summit of their mountain, but that, if they had any doubts on the subject, they might send over a deputation to meet a Ratura deputation, and hold a palaver to clear the matter up. The deputations were sent. They met.
Of course we give the nearest equivalent in English that we can find for the vernacular used. "You and your greedy forefathers," resumed the Mountain-man, "have always kept your false eyes on our mountain-top, and you are looking at it still." "That's a lie," returned the man of Ratura with savage simplicity.
We are not sure that the word used in the Ratura language was the exact counterpart of the words "brush" and "scrimmage" in ours, but it meant the same thing, namely, the cutting of a number of throats, or the battering in of a number of human skulls unnecessarily. Of course there was a casus belli.
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