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apartments of his dwelling. He was perturbed when he entered that in which I
awaited him, and I saw a worried expression upon his face.
"
"
What is wrong?" I asked. "Have they found Ajor?"
No," he replied; "but Ajor has gone. She learned that you had escaped them and
was told that you had left the village, believing that she had escaped too. So-al
could not detain her. She made her way out over the top of the palisade, armed
with only her knife."
"Then I must go," I said, rising. Nobs rose and shook himself. He had been dead
asleep when I spoke.
"Yes," agreed Chal-az, "you must go at once. It is almost dawn. Du-seen leaves at
daylight to search for her." He leaned close to my ear and whispered: "There are
many to follow and help you. Al-tan has agreed to aid Du-seen against the Galus
of Jor; but there are many of us who have combined to rise against Al-tan and
prevent this ruthless desecration of the laws and customs of the Kro-lu and of
Caspak. We will rise as Luata has ordained that we shall rise, and only thus. No
batu may win to the estate of a Galu by treachery and force of arms while Chal-az
lives and may wield a heavy blow and a sharp spear with true Kro-lus at his
back!"
"I hope that I may live to aid you," I replied. "If I had my weapons and my
ammunition, I could do much. Do you know where they are?" "No," he said, "they
have disappeared." And then: "Wait! You cannot go forth half armed, and
garbed as you are. You are going into the Galu country, and you must go as a
Galu. Come!" And without waiting for a reply, he led me into another apartment,
or to be more explicit, another of the several huts which formed his cellular
dwelling.
Here was a pile of skins, weapons, and ornaments. "Remove your strange
apparel," said Chal-az, "and I will fit you out as a true Galu. I have slain several
of them in the raids of my early days as a Kro-lu, and here are their trappings."
I saw the wisdom of his suggestion, and as my clothes were by now so ragged as
to but half conceal my nakedness, I had no regrets in laying them aside. Stripped
to the skin, I donned the red-deerskin tunic, the leopard-tail, the golden fillet,
armlets and leg-ornaments of a Galu, with the belt, scabbard and knife, the
shield, spear, bow and arrow and the long rope which I learned now for the first
time is the distinctive weapon of the Galu warrior. It is a rawhide rope, not
dissimilar to those of the Western plains and cow-camps of my youth. The honda
is a golden oval and accurate weight for the throwing of the noose. This heavy
honda, Chal-az explained, is used as a weapon, being thrown with great force and
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