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Updated: May 4, 2025
"Where life and death are concerned we have equal powers with you." "And if we disagree?" asked the players, gently. "Great Kika-koo! If we disagree the High Ki must judge between us!" roared the twin Ki, excitedly. "Quite so," answered the Ki-Ki. "The strangers shall die."
The Ki stooped their aged shoulders and shuffled along with their hands in their pockets, and only once did they speak, and that was to roar "Great Kika-koo!" when the Ki-Ki jabbed their canes down on the Ki's toes. Following the Ki-Ki and the Ki came the prince and Nerle, escorted by the twin captains, and then there were files of twin soldiers bringing up the rear.
The Ki-Ki, who had not spoken a word but continued to play softly, simply nodded their blond heads carelessly; so the Ki looked again at the prisoners and asked: "How did you get here?" "We cut a hole through the prickly hedge," replied Prince Marvel. "A hole through the hedge! Great Kika-koo!" cried the gray-bearded Ki; "is there, then, anything or any place on the other side of the hedge?"
The Ki-Ki still continued playing, but now spoke the first words the prisoners had heard from them. "They must die," said the Ki-Ki, in soft and agreeable voices. "Die!" echoed the twin Ki, "die? Great Kika-koo! And why so?"
The place appeared to them to be completely empty, so they walked along and came opposite the mirror. Here all stopped at once, and the twin High Ki uttered exclamations of surprise, and the twin Ki shouted, "Great Kika-koo!" For there in the glass were the reflections of the three girls and Nerle and King Terribus and Wul-Takim.
"With your long legs," added the pretty pair of High Ki, laughingly, "you ought to be able to jump farther than any other grasshopper in the kingdom." "Great Kika-koo!" cried the Ki, nervously, "what a fate! what a terrible fate! And your Highnesses, I suppose, will become June-bugs, and flutter your wings with noises like buzz-saws!"
When the prisoners entered, the pairs of captains and soldiers bowed low to the two pairs of rulers, and the Ki exclaimed both in the same voice of surprise: "Great Kika-koo! what have we here?" "Most wonderful prisoners, your Highnesses," answered the captains. "We found them at your cities' gates and brought them to you at once.
But it was hard for Nerle to keep quiet for long, and presently he exclaimed, in a voice loud enough to be heard by all present: "By the Great Kika-koo of our friends the Ki, these darling High Ki of Twi are sweet enough to be kissed!" The Rebellion of the High Ki
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