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Updated: May 20, 2025
And Bashti, his keen old ears pitched for the first untoward sound from on deck, had continually nodded his head and dipped his hand into the proffered basket now for betel-nut, and lime-box, and the invariable green leaf with which to wrap the mouthful; now for tobacco with which to fill his short clay pipe; and, again, for matches with which to light the pipe which seemed not to draw well and which frequently went out.
Bashti demanded directly of Agno. "Me kai-kai along him," came the answer. "Him fat fella dog. Him good fella dog kai-kai." Into Bashti's alert old brain flashed an idea that had been long maturing. "Him good fella dog too much," he announced. "Better you eat 'm bush fella dog," he advised, pointing at wild-dog. Agno shook his head. "Bush fella dog no good kai-kai."
She was compelled to clasp them tightly against her sides in order that they might not roll to the ground. Behind her, Bashti placed Wiwau, who was armed with a bristle of bamboo splints mounted on a light long shaft of bamboo.
It was a flint-lock, as long as a man's forearm, and it had been loaded that afternoon by no less a person than Bashti himself. Quick as Bashti had been, Van Horn was almost as quick, but not quite quick enough. Even as his hand leapt to the modern automatic lying out of it's holster and loose on his knees, the pistol of the centuries went off.
At the first stream pouring down between the low hills of the rising land, he paused and put Jerry down to drink. And Jerry knew only the delight of the wet coolness on his tongue, all about his mouth, and down his throat. Nevertheless, in his subconsciousness was being planted the impression that, kinder than Lamai, than Agno, than Bashti, this was the kindest black he had encountered in Somo.
Opposite Bashti, Wiwau lost one of the stones, and, in the effort to recover it, lost the other, which rolled a dozen feet away from the first. Tiha became a whirlwind of avenging fury. And all Somo went wild. Bashti held his lean sides with merriment while tears of purest joy ran down his prodigiously wrinkled cheeks.
They were anything but gentle to the meat with which they had been favoured by good fortune and the wisdom of Bashti. For a time they sat about, all pulling at clay pipes and chirruping and laughing in queer thin falsettos at the events of the night and the previous afternoon.
And at that moment, his ears cocked forward and his nose questing for further information in the matter, Bashti seized him by the nape of the neck and held him in the air while Agno proceeded to tie his legs. No whimper, nor sound, nor sign of fear, came from Jerry only choking growls of ferociousness, intermingled with snarls of anger, and a belligerent up-clawing of hind-legs.
The weaklings and cowards they had promptly eaten, and the unbelievable tale of their many heads adorning the canoe-houses was part of the myth. And this tribe, territory, and stronghold, at the latter end of time, Bashti had inherited, and he had bettered his inheritance. Nor was he above continuing to better it.
"But of life of man and life of woman," Agno qualified. "I know the law," Bashti held steadily on. "Somo made the law. Never has it been said that animal life may not buy animal life." "It has never been practised," was the devil devil doctor's fling. "And for reason enough," the old chief retorted. "Never before has a man been fool enough to give a pig for a dog.
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