They followed his sadly expressive gaze to where the gong hung far out
over the cliff, inaccessible to human touch.

"Daughter, it _will_ be rung for you ... somehow.... Ohto has said it.
I hope to live to hear it rung ... when you have found him who is to
share your house--and after that, I do not care."

He paused again--lost in a patriarch's vague memories of other years.
Retrieving his vagrant thoughts, he caught the frank message of the
upturned face, a message which startled as it pleased him.

"Ah! You have found him, then? Let him step forth."

Ohto searched every brown face in the hushed circle, but none stepped
forward.

Ahma slowly turned her head toward where the two white men stood
apart, her eyes fastened upon Major Bronner. Terry gently pushed him
forward. Trembling, his tanned face bloodless, the Major advanced and
took her outstretched hand.

Ohto studied the Major, then turned to Terry. For a long moment he
searched the lad's strong face, a deep disappointment in his own,
before he again faced the two before him.

"I had not thought of this. But it will do. It is as it should
be--white will be happier with white. But ... will she stay until Ohto
joins his fathers?"

The Major hesitated, then answered the sadly anxious question with a
nod. He had no voice.

"Then she is yours ... after you have found a way to ring the Tribal
Agong for her marriage. Ohto never spoke in vain. Ring the Agong
first."

The Major's glance swept from Ahma to the lofty gong. His triumphant
joy gave way to deepest dejection. He saw no way to fulfil the chief's
requirement, and he turned despairingly to Terry, who had shouldered
through the crowd and stood beside him.

The Hillmen had accepted Ohto's interpretation unquestioningly. Their
chief had spoken. The unexpectedness of the new phase, the avowal of
love by the tribe's adopted daughter for one of the outlanders, had
appealed to the keen sense of the dramatic that is shared by all
primitive peoples. Their brown skins coppered by the rosy glow of the
setting sun, they stood in strained suspense awaiting the climax.

All but Pud-Pud. He jostled an avenue through the innermost ring of
Hillmen and leaped out in front of Terry, brandishing a short blow
tube he carried and laughing in shrill derision.

"Ya, white men! Now ring the Agong! Ring the Agong and get your woman!
I saw! I watched! And I laughed because I knew the Agong would never
ring again! Yeah! No