orrel. As he did so, dark
figures sprang up on all sides of him. Without a word he drove the
excited horse at his assailants. Three caught his bridle-rein, and
others snatched at him to draw him from his horse.

"Hands off!" he cried, in the language of Mandakan, and levelled his
pistol.

"He is English!" said a voice. "Cut him down!"

"I am the Governor's son," said the lad. "Let go." "Cut him down!"
snarled the voice again.

He fired twice quickly.

Then he remembered the tribe-call given his father by Pango Dooni.
Rising in his saddle and firing again, he called it out in a loud voice.
His plunging horse had broken away from two of the murderers; but one
still held on, and he slashed the hand free with his sword.

The natives were made furious by the call, and came on again, striking
at him with their krises. He shouted the tribe-call once more, but this
time it was done involuntarily. There was no response in front of him;
but one came from behind. There was clattering of hoofs on Koongat
Bridge, and the password of the clan came back to the lad, even as a
kris struck him in the leg and drew out again. Once again he called, and
suddenly a horseman appeared beside him, who clove through a native's
head with a broadsword, and with a pistol fired at the fleeing figures;
for Boonda Broke's men who were thus infesting the highway up to Koongat
Bridge, and even beyond, up to the Bar of Balmud, hearing the newcomer
shout the dreaded name of Pango Dooni, scattered for their lives, though
they were yet twenty to two. One stood his ground, and it would have
gone ill for Cumner's Son, for this thief had him at fatal advantage,
had it not been for the horseman who had followed the lad from the
forge-fire to Koongat Bridge. He stood up in his stirrups and cut down
with his broadsword, so that the blade was driven through the head and
shoulders of his foe as a woodsman splits a log half through, and grunts
with the power of his stroke.

Then he turned to the lad.

"What stranger calls by the word of our tribe?" he asked.

"I am Cumner's Son," was the answer, "and my father is brother-in-blood
with Pango Dooni. I ride to Pango Dooni for the women and children's
sake."

"Proof! Proof! If you be Cumner's Son, another word should be yours."

The Colonel's Son took out the bracelet from his breast. "It is safe hid
here," said he, "and hid also under my tongue. If you be from the Neck
of Baroob you will know it when I spe