Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 26, 2025
In the meantime Akoon ate and slept, and lingered much at the steamboat landing, deaf to the rising resentment of Tana-naw Station in that he did nothing. Twenty-four hours later Porportuk returned. He was tired and savage. He spoke to no one but Akoon, and with him tried to pick a quarrel. But Akoon shrugged his shoulders and walked away. Porportuk did not waste time.
Never will she run away from you this is the word of Porportuk. She has great wit. I know, for often has it bitten into me. Yet am I minded myself to give my wit play for once. And by my wit will I secure her to you, Akoon."
He looked again, and said reluctantly, "And five hundred." "Twenty-six thousand," Porportuk snapped. The king shook his head and refused to meet Tommy's pleading eye. In the meantime Akoon had edged close to Porportuk. El-Soo's quick eye noted this, and, while Tommy wrestled with the Eldorado king for another bid, she bent, and spoke in a low voice in the ear of a slave.
She sprang back with a sharp cry of alarm, and Porportuk would have caught her had it not been for Tommy. Tommy's leg went out, Porportuk tripped and pitched forward on the ground. El-Soo got her start. "Then catch me," she laughed over her shoulder, as she fled away. She ran lightly and easily, but Porportuk ran swiftly and savagely. He outran her.
But in appearance he still ruled, dozing, ofttimes at the board, a bacchanalian ruin, yet in all seeming the ruler of the feast. And through the large house moved the figure of Porportuk, ominous, with shaking head, coldly disapproving, paying for it all. Not that he really paid, for he compounded interest in weird ways, and year by year absorbed the properties of Klakee-Nah.
It is known to all that Porportuk paid a heavy price for the woman El-Soo. Wherefore does the woman El-Soo belong to Porportuk and none other." He sat down heavily, and coughed. The old men nodded and coughed. "I will kill you," Akoon cried in English. Porportuk smiled and stood up. "You have given true judgment," he said to the council, "and my young men will give to you much tobacco.
You did not think quick. It is your loss. Your wit is slow these days, Porportuk. You are getting old." He did not answer. He glanced uneasily at Akoon, and was reassured. His lips tightened, and a hint of cruelty came into his face. "Come," he said, "we will go to my house." "Do you remember the two things I told you in the spring?" El-Soo asked, making no movement to accompany him.
"But it costs overmuch," Klakee-Nah roared, completing it for him. Porportuk winced at the laughter that went down the table. His eyes burned malevolently. "We were boys together, of the same age," he said. "In your throat is death. I am still alive and strong." An ominous murmur arose from the company. Klakee-Nah coughed and strangled, and the old slaves smote him between the shoulders.
Porportuk continued grudgingly to advance money, and ever the money flowed in golden foam away. Upon one thing El-Soo was resolved her father should die as he had lived. There should be for him no passing from high to low, no diminution of the revels, no lessening of the lavish hospitality. When there was famine, as of old, the Indians came groaning to the large house and went away content.
"We do not know the speech you make," one said. "He but said that he would kill me," Porportuk volunteered. "So it were well to take from him his rifle, and to have some of your young men sit by him, that he may not do me hurt. He is a young man, and what are broken bones to youth!"
Word Of The Day
Others Looking