Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/128

114 Head upon head distorted,

Clinched in a sightless grin,

Anger and pain and terror

Writ on the smoke-scorched skin.

Subadar Prag Tewarri

Set the head of the Boh

On the top of the mound in triumph

The head of his son below,

With the sword and the peacock-banner

That the world might behold and know.

Thus the samádh was perfect,

Thus was the lesson plain

Of the wrath of the First Shikaris—

The price of a white man slain;

And the men of the First Shikaris

Went back into camp again.

Then a silence came to the river,

A hush fell over the shore,

And Bohs that were brave departed,

And Sniders squibbed no more;

For the Burmans said

That a kullah's head

Must be paid for with heads five score.