smay and misery ruled. Boonda Broke and the dead Dakoon
were forgotten. The people were in the presence of a monster which could
sweep them from their homes as a hail-storm scatters the hanging nests
of wild bees. In a thousand homes little red lights of propitiation were
shining, and the sweet boolda wood was burning at a thousand shrines.
Midnight came, then the long lethargic hours after; then that moment
when all cattle of the field and beasts of the forest wake and stand
upon their feet, and lie down again, and the cocks crow, and the birds
flutter their wings, and all resign themselves to sleep once more. It
was in this hour that the sick man opened his eyes and raised his head,
as though the mysterious influence of primitive life were rousing him.
He said nothing and did nothing, but lay back and drew in a long, good
breath of air, and afterwards fell asleep.

The beggar got to his feet. "The man is safe," said he.

"I will go and tell them," said Cumner's Son gladly, and he made as if
to open the door.

"Not till dawn," commanded the beggar. "Let them suffer for their sins.
We hold the knowledge of life and death in our hands."

"But my father, and Tang-a-Dahit, and Pango Dooni."

"Are they without sin?" asked the beggar scornfully. "At dawn, only at
dawn!"

So they sat and waited till dawn. And when the sun was well risen, the
beggar threw wide open the door of the house, and called aloud to the
horsemen far off, and Cumner's Son waved with his hand; and McDermot
came galloping to them. He jumped from his horse and wrung the boy's
hand, then that of the beggar, then talked in broken sentences, which
were spattered by the tears in his throat. He told Cumner's Son that his
face was as that of one who had lain in a grave, and he called aloud in
a blustering voice, and beckoned for troopers to come. The whole line
moved down on them, horsemen and soldiers and people.

The city was saved from the Red Plague, and the people, gone mad with
joy, would have carried Cumner's Son to the Palace on their shoulders,
but he walked beside the beggar to his father's house, hillsmen in front
and English soldiers behind; and wasted and ghostly, from riding and
fighting and watching, he threw himself upon the bed in his own room,
and passed, as an eyelid blinks, into a deep sleep.

But the beggar sat down on a mat with a loaf of bread, a bowl of goat's
milk, and a long cigar which McDermot gave him, and he received idly al