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Updated: June 6, 2025
For long they rode silently, and in that time Cumner's Son found new thoughts; and these thoughts made him love the brown hillsman as he had never loved any save his own father. "When there is peace in Mandakan," said he at last, "when Boonda Broke is snapped in two like a pencil, when Pango Dooni sits as Dakoon in the Palace of Mandakan "
"Ten of my captains and three of my kinsmen are come to break bread with Cumner's Son," said he. "They would hear the tale of our kinsmen who died against the Palace wall, by the will of the sick Dakoon." The lad sprang to his feet fresh and well, the linen and skins falling away from his lithe, clean body and limbs, and he took from the slaves his clothes.
"I will go and tell them," said Cumner's Son gladly, and he made as if to open the door. "Not till dawn," commanded the beggar. "Let them suffer for their sins. We hold the knowledge of life and death in our hands." "But my father, and Tang-a-Dahit, and Pango Dooni." "Are they without sin?" asked the beggar scornfully. "At dawn, only at dawn!" So they sat and waited till dawn.
When Cumner's Son stood forth he was pale and astounded before the cries of greeting that were carried out through the Palace yard, through the highways, and even to the banyan tree where sat the beggar of Nangoon. "I have done nothing, I have done nothing," said he sincerely. "It was Pango Dooni, it was the beggar of Nangoon. I am not fit to rule."
"There is no one else; the lad or death for the city! I can believe the young; the old have deceived me," interposed the beggar again. "Time passes," said Cumner's Son anxiously. "The man may die. You say yes to my going, sir?" he asked his father. The Governor frowned, and the skin of his cheeks tightened. "Go-go, and good luck to you, boy."
There was silence again for a long time, for Cumner's Son was turning things over in his mind; and all at once he felt that each man's acts must be judged by the blood that is in him and the trail by which he has come. The sorrel and the chestnut mare travelled together as on one snaffle-bar, step by step, for they were foaled in the same stable.
At first he thought it might be an Englishman in disguise, but the brown of the beggar's face was real, and there was no mistaking the high narrow forehead, the slim fingers, and the sloe-black eyes. Yet he seemed not a native of Mandakan. McDermot was about to ask him who he was, when there was a rattle of horse's hoofs, and Cumner's Son galloped excitedly up the court-yard.
A little cloud of tobacco smoke came curling out of a window of the Residency. It was sniffed up by the orderly, whose pipe was in barracks, and must lie there untouched until evening at least; for he had stood at this door since seven that morning, waiting orders; and he knew by the look on Colonel Cumner's face that he might be there till to-morrow.
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. Cumner'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.
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. Cumner's Son had recognised the voice, and his eye followed its direction with a perfect certainty.
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