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Updated: June 6, 2025
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.
When the plainsmen came to the cape of green, they paused not by the secret place, for it seemed to them that two had ridden past and not one. The Son of Pango Dooni had drawn pursuit after himself, for it is the law of the hills that a hillsman shall give his life or all that he has for a brother-in-blood. When Cumner's Son had gone a little way he understood it all!
Cumner's Son was supple and swift, and scarce an hour had passed ere he came to a steep place on the other side, with rough niches cut in the rocks, by which a strong man might lift himself up to safety. He stood a moment and ate some coffee-beans and drank some cold water from a stream at the foot of the crag, and then began his ascent.
And elsewhere Boonda Broke was showing Cumner's Son how to throw a kris towards one object and make it hit another. He gave an illustration by aiming at a palm-tree and sticking a passing dog behind the shoulder. The dog belonged to Cumner's Son, and the lad's face suddenly blazed with anger.
The city was saved from the Red Plague, and the people, gone mad with joy, would have carried Cumner's Son to the Palace on their shoulders, but he walked beside the beggar to his father's house, hillsmen in front and English soldiers behind; and wasted and ghostly, from riding and fighting and watching, he threw himself upon the bed in his own room, and passed, as an eyelid blinks, into a deep sleep.
No man knew from Cumner's speech who was to be Dakoon, yet every man in Mandakan said in the quiet of his home that night: "To-morrow Pango Dooni will be Dakoon. We will be as the stubble of the field before him. But Pango Dooni is a strong man."
"By the word of a hillsman, but thou shalt have thy will," said the chief. "We are seven hundred men choose whom to fight." "The oldest or the youngest," answered the man. "Pango Dooni or Cumner's Son." Before the chief had time to speak, Cumner's Son struck the man with the flat of his sword across the breast. The man did not lift his arm, but looked at the lad steadily for a moment.
Behind the gun-carriage, which bore the body, walked the nephew of the great Dakoon, then came a clear space, and then Pango Dooni, and Cumner, and behind these twenty men of the artillery, at whose head rode McDermot and Cumner's Son. As they passed the Path by the Bazaar every eye among the hillsmen and among the handful of British was alert.
"Hadst thou fought for thyself the deed were good," said Pango Dooni, "but thy blood was shed for another, and that is the pride of good men. We have true men here, but thou art a true chief and this shalt thou wear." He took the rich belt from his waist, and fastened it round the waist of his son. "Cumner's Son carries the sword that hung in the belt.
At that moment there was a cry from beyond the troopers, and it was answered from among them by a kinsman of Pango Dooni, and presently, the troopers parting, down the line came Tang-a-Dahit, with bandaged head and arm. In greeting, Pango Dooni raised the pistol which Cumner's Son had given him and fired it into the air. Straightway five hundred men did the same.
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