Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 6, 2025
Where is he? In the Palace?" McDermot shook his head mournfully, for he knew the history of this plague, the horror of its ravages, the tribes it had destroyed. The beggar leaned back against the cool wall and laughed. McDermot turned on him in his fury, and would have kicked him, but Cumner's Son, struck by some astute intelligence in the man's look, said: "What do you know of the Red Plague?"
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 Cumner's Son." All at once her eyes brightened as though a current of light had been suddenly sent through them.
"Cumner's Son," said she "Cumner's Son, and thou the future of Mandakan is all with ye; neither with Cumner, 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." "Cumner's Son is without," said he. "May I fetch him to thee?"
"Why do you ask this?" asked McDermot, nodding towards Cumner's Son. The beggar shrugged his shoulders. "That he may not do with me as did the Rajah of Nangoon." "He is not Dakoon," said McDermot. "Will the young man promise me?" "Promise what?" asked Cumner's Son. "A mat to pray on, a house, a servant, and a loaf of bread, a bowl of goat's milk, and a silver najil every day till I die."
He reined in his horse not ten feet away from the irregular columns. "You know me," said he. "I am Cumner's Son. I rode into the hills at the Governor's word to bring a strong man to rule you. Why do ye stand here idle? My father, your friend, fights with a hundred men at the Residency. Choose ye between Boonda Broke, the mongrel, and Pango Dooni, the great hillsman.
One stood his ground, and it would have gone ill for Cumner's Son, for this thief had him at fatal advantage, had it not been for the horseman who had followed the lad from the forge-fire to Koongat Bridge.
"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.
Then all at once the horses plunged into wild gallop, and the hillsmen came thundering down towards the chief and Cumner's Son, with swords waving and cutting to right and left, calling aloud, their teeth showing, death and valour in their eyes. The chief glanced at Cumner's Son. The horses were not twenty feet from the lad, but he did not stir a muscle.
Then we shall be in my own country. See, the dawn comes up! 'Twixt here and the Bar of Balmud our danger lies. A hundred men may ambush there, for Boonda Broke's thieves have scattered all the way from Mandakan to our borders." Cumner's Son looked round. There were hills and defiles everywhere, and a thousand places where foes could hide.
They could not see the front of the Palace, nor yet the Residency Square, but, even as they looked, a cannonade began, and the smoke of the guns curled through the showering peach-trees. Hoarse shoutings and cries came rolling over the pink roofs, and Cumner's Son could hear through all the bugle-call of the artillery.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking