Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/83

Rh Long was the morn of slaughter,

Long was the list of slain,

Five score heads were taken,

Five score heads and twain;

And the men of the First Shikaris

Went back to their grave again,

Each man bearing a basket

Red as his palms that day,

Red as the blazing village—

The village of Pabengmay.

And the "drip-drip-drip" from the baskets

Reddened the grass by the way.

They made a pile of their trophies

High as a tall man's chin,

Head upon head distorted,

Set in a sightless grin,

Anger and pain and terror

Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.

Subadar Prag Tewarri

Put the head of the Boh

On the top of the mound of triumph,

The head of his son below—

With the sword and the peacock-banner

That the world might behold and know.

Thus the samadh 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.