g point. If they would but waste half an hour in
stone-throwing, the dark would come to our help. We were feeling
very well satisfied. We could smile; almost laugh.

But we didn't; which was just as well, for we should have been
interrupted. Before the stones had been raging through the leaves
and bouncing from the boughs fifteen minutes, we began to notice
a smell. A couple of sniffs of it was enough of an explanation
--it was smoke! Our game was up at last. We recognized that. When
smoke invites you, you have to come. They raised their pile of
dry brush and damp weeds higher and higher, and when they saw
the thick cloud begin to roll up and smother the tree, they broke
out in a storm of joy-clamors. I got enough breath to say:

"Proceed, my liege; after you is manners."

The king gasped:

"Follow me down, and then back thyself against one side of the
trunk, and leave me the other. Then will we fight. Let each pile
his dead according to his own fashion and taste."

Then he descended, barking and coughing, and I followed. I struck
the ground an instant after him; we sprang to our appointed places,
and began to give and take with all our might. The powwow and
racket were prodigious; it was a tempest of riot and confusion and
thick-falling blows. Suddenly some horsemen tore into the midst
of the crowd, and a voice shouted:

"Hold--or ye are dead men!"

How good it sounded! The owner of the voice bore all the marks of
a gentleman: picturesque and costly raiment, the aspect of command,
a hard countenance, with complexion and features marred by dissipation.
The mob fell humbly back, like so many spaniels. The gentleman
inspected us critically, then said sharply to the peasants:

"What are ye doing to these people?"

"They be madmen, worshipful sir, that have come wandering we know
not whence, and--"

"Ye know not whence? Do ye pretend ye know them not?"

"Most honored sir, we speak but the truth. They are strangers
and unknown to any in this region; and they be the most violent
and bloodthirsty madmen that ever--"

"Peace! Ye know not what ye say. They are not mad. Who are ye?
And whence are ye? Explain."

"We are but peaceful strangers, sir," I said, "and traveling upon
our own concerns. We are from a far country, and unacquainted
here. We have purposed no harm; and yet but for your brave
interference and protection these people would have killed us.
As you have divined, sir, we ar