Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/255

 fraction of a second was all that Külop needed to see this, and to take in the whole situation. With him action and preception kept even step. Before the dart had ceased to shudder, before the Sâkai on the bank had had time to send another in its wake, before the men poling his raft had fully grasped what was happening, Kalop had seized the nearest of them by his frowzy halo of e'flocks, and had drawn him screaming across his knees. The terrified creature. writhed and bellewed, flinging his body about wildly, and his friends upon the bank feared to blow their darts lest they should inadvertently wound their kins- man while trying to kill the Malay.

"Have a care, you swine of the forest!" roared Kulop, cuffing the yelling Sâkai unsparingly in order to keep his limbs in constant motion. "Have a care, you sons of fallen women! If you spew forth one more of your darts, this man, your little brother, dies forthwith by my kris."

The Sâkai on the bank had no reason to doubt the sincerity of Kûlop's intentions, and as these poor creatures love their relatives, both near and distant, far more than is usual in more civilized communities. where those connected by ties of blood do not neces- sarily live together in constant close association, they dared not blow another dart. Moreover, one poi- soned arrow had apparently gone home, and a single drop of the powerful solution of the ipoh which they were using sufficed, as they well knew, to cause death accompanied by excrucioting agony. The attacking party therefore drew off, and Kûlop of the Harelip