Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/336

 3i8 RUDYARD KIPLING'S VERSE

"Now ye go down in the morning with guns of the newer

style, That load (I have felt) in the middle and range (I have heard)

a mile ?

Luck to the white man's rifle, that shoots so fast and true, But pay, and I lift my bandage and show what the Bear

can do!"

(Flesh like slag in the furnace, knobbed and withered and

grey Matun, the old blind beggar, he gives good worth for his

pay.)

"Rouse him at noon in the bushes, follow and press him hard Not for his ragings and roarings flinch ye from Adam-zad.

"But (pay, and I put back the bandage) this is the time to

fear,

When he stands up like a tired man, tottering near and near; When he stands up as pleading, in wavering, man-brute guise, When he veils the hate and cunning of his little, swinish eyes;

"When he shows as seeking quarter, with paws like hands in

prayer, That is the time of peril the time of the Truce of the Bear!"

Eyeless, noseless, and lipless, asking a dole at the door, Matun, the old blind beggar, he tells it o'er and o'er; Fumbling and feeling the rifles, warming his hands at the

flame, Hearing our careless white men talk of the morrow's game;

Over and over the story, ending as he began: " There is no truce with Adam-zad,, the Bear that looks like a Man!"