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Updated: June 13, 2025
"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 noted how the lattices stirred as he passed through this inner court-yard where few strangers were ever allowed to pass, and he cocked his head vaingloriously. He smiled at the lizards hanging on the foundation stones, he paused to dip his finger in the basin of a fountain, he eyed good-humouredly the beggars old pensioners of the late Dakoon seated in the shade with outstretched hands.
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.
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.
How knew they what the new Dakoon would do send them off into the hills, or kill them? McDermot was in a famous humour, for he had just come from Pango Dooni, the possessor of a great secret, and he had been paid high honour. He looked round on the court-yard complacently, and with an air of familiarity and possession which seemed hardly justified by his position.
He turned to his father, but saw no help in his eyes for refusal. The lad read the whole story of his father's face, and he turned again to the people. "If ye will have it so, then, by the grace of God, I will do right by this our land," said he. A half-hour later he stood before them, wearing the costly robe of yellow feathers and gold and perfect silk of the Dakoon of Mandakan.
And Pango Dooni sat on the ground near them and pondered, and no man broke his meditation. When the two hours were gone, they mounted again and rode on through the dark villages towards Mandakan. It was just at the close of the hour before dawn that the squad of troopers who rode a dozen rods before the columns, heard a cry from the dark ahead. "Halt-in the name of the Dakoon!"
Along the line of the Bazaar ranged another thousand men, armed only with krises, under the command of the heir of the late Dakoon, and with these were a hundred and fifty mounted hillsmen, watchful and deliberate. These were also under the command of a kinsman of Pango Dooni.
But consider the nest of murderers that'll be let loose here when the Dakoon dies. Better a strong robber with a strong robber's honour to perch there in the Palace, than Boonda Broke and his cut-throats " "Honour honour? Pango Dooni!" broke out McDermot the gunner scornfully.
The British flag flew half-mast from the Palace dome, and two others flew behind it; one the black and yellow banner of the hillsmen, the other the red and white pennant of the dead Dakoon. In the Palace yard a thousand men stood at attention, and at their head was Cushnan Di with fifty hillsmen.
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