Cumner's Son turned round in his saddle as if to read the face of the
man, but it was too dark.

"And naught that there maybe peace." Those were the words of a hillsman
who had followed him furiously in the night ready to kill, who had cloven
the head of a man like a piece of soap, and had been riding even into
Mandakan where a price was set on his head.

For long they rode silently, and in that time Cumner's Son found new
thoughts; and these thoughts made him love the brown hillsman as he had
never loved any save his own father.

"When there is peace in Mandakan," said he at last, "when Boonda Broke is
snapped in two like a pencil, when Pango Dooni sits as Dakoon in the
Palace of Mandakan--"

"There is a maid in Mandakan," interrupted Tanga-Dahit, "and these two
years she has lain upon her bed, and she may not be moved, for the bones
of her body are as the soft stems of the lily, but her face is a perfect
face, and her tongue has the wisdom of God."

"You ride to her through the teeth of danger?"

"She may not come to me, and I must go to her," answered the hillsman.

There was silence again for a long time, for Cumner's Son was turning
things over in his mind; and all at once he felt that each man's acts
must be judged by the blood that is in him and the trail by which he has
come.