cinctly.

"There is no such people," asserted the Band-lu quite truthfully,
toying with his spear in a most suggestive manner.

"My name is Tom," I explained, "and I am from a country beyond Caspak."
I thought it best to propitiate him if possible, because of the
necessity of conserving ammunition as well as to avoid the loud alarm
of a shot which might bring other Band-lu warriors upon us. "I am from
America, a land of which you never heard, and I am seeking others of my
countrymen who are in Caspak and from whom I am lost. I have no quarrel
with you or your people. Let us go our way in peace."

"You are going there?" he asked, and pointed toward the north.

"I am," I replied.

He was silent for several minutes, apparently weighing some thought in
his mind. At last he spoke. "What is that?" he asked. "And what is
that?" He pointed first at my rifle and then to my pistol.

"They are weapons," I replied, "weapons which kill at a great
distance." I pointed to the women in the pool beneath us. "With this,"
I said, tapping my pistol, "I could kill as many of those women as I
cared to, without moving a step from where we now stand."

He looked his incredulity, but I went on. "And with this"--I weighed
my rifle at the balance in the palm of my right hand--"I could slay one
of those distant warriors." And I waved my left hand toward the tiny
figures of the hunters far to the north.

The fellow laughed. "Do it," he cried derisively, "and then it may be
that I shall believe the balance of your strange story."

"But I do not wish to kill any of them," I replied. "Why should I?"

"Why not?" he insisted. "They would have killed you when they had you
prisoner. They would kill you now if they could get their hands on
you, and they would eat you into the bargain. But I know why you do
not try it--it is because you have spoken lies; your weapon will not
kill at a great distance. It is only a queerly wrought club. For all
I know, you are nothing more than a lowly Bo-lu."

"Why should you wish me to kill your own people?" I asked.

"They are no longer my people," he replied proudly. "Last night, in
the very middle of the night, the call came to me. Like that it came
into my head"--and he struck his hands together smartly once--"that I
had risen. I have been waiting for it and expecting it for a long
time; today I am a Krolu. Today I go into the coslupak" (unpeopled
country, or literally, no man's land) "b