THE RED PLAGUE

"He promised he'd bring me a basket of posies,
A garland of lilies, a garland of roses,
A little straw hat to set off the blue ribbons
That tie up my bonnie brown hair."

This was the song McDermot sang to himself as he walked up the great
court-yard of the Palace, past the lattice windows, behind which the
silent women of the late Dakoon's household still sat, passive and grief-
stricken. How knew they what the new Dakoon would do--send them off into
the hills, or kill them? McDermot was in a famous humour, for he had
just come from Pango Dooni, the possessor of a great secret, and he had
been paid high honour. He looked round on the court-yard complacently,
and with an air of familiarity and possession which seemed hardly
justified by his position. He noted how the lattices stirred as he
passed through this inner court-yard where few strangers were ever
allowed to pass, and he cocked his head vaingloriously. He smiled at the
lizards hanging on the foundation stones, he paused to dip his finger in
the basin of a fountain, he eyed good-humouredly the beggars--old
pensioners of the late Dakoon--seated in the shade with outstretched
hands. One of them drew his attention, a slim, cadaverous-looking wretch
who still was superior to his fellows, and who sat apart from them,
evidently by their wish as much as by his own.

McDermot was still humming the song to himself as he neared the group;
but he stopped short, as he heard the isolated beggar repeat after him in
English:

"He promised he'd bring me a bunch of blue ribbons,