a pig?"

He paused and cast a challenging eye around the circle of his audience;
but no man spoke. Instead, some men grinned sheepishly and were restless
on their feet, while Agno's expression advertised sturdy unbelief that
there was anything pig-like about his chief.

"I have eaten much fish," Bashti continued. "Never has one scale of a
fish grown out on my skin. Never has a gill appeared on my throat. As
you all know, by the looking, never have I sprouted one fin out of my
backbone.--Nalasu, take the dog.--Aga, carry the pig to my house. I
shall eat it to-day.--Agno, let the killing of the dogs begin so that the
canoe-men shall eat at due time."

Then, as he turned to go, he lapsed into beche-de-mer English and flung
sternly over his shoulder, "My word, you make 'm me cross along you."

CHAPTER XVII

As blind Nalasu slowly plodded away, with one hand tapping the path
before him and with the other carrying Jerry head-downward suspended by
his tied legs, Jerry heard a sudden increase in the wild howling of the
dogs as the killing began and they realized that death was upon them.

But, unlike the boy Lamai, who had known no better, the old man did not
carry Jerry all the way to his house. At the first stream pouring down
between the low hills of the rising land, he paused and put Jerry down to
drink. And Jerry knew only the delight of the wet coolness on his
tongue, all about his mouth, and down his throat. Nevertheless, in his
subconsciousness was being planted the impression that, kinder than
Lamai, than Agno, than Bashti, this was the kindest black he had
encountered in Somo.

When he had drunk till for the moment he could drink no more, he thanked
Nalasu with his tongue--not warmly nor ecstatically as had it been
Skipper's hand, but with due gratefulness for the life-giving draught.
The old man chuckled in a pleased way, rolled Jerry's parched body into
the water, and, keeping his head above the surface, rubbed the water into
his dry skin and let him lie there for long blissful minutes.

From the stream to Nalasu's house, a goodly distance, Nalasu still
carried him with bound legs, although not head-downward but clasped in
one arm against his chest. His idea was to love the dog to him. For
Nalasu, having sat in the lonely dark for many years, had thought far
more about the world around him and knew it far better than had he been
able to see it. For his own special purpose he had need of a