‘He is an outlander,’ said the King.  ‘Well done!  Oh, well done!’

Namgay Doola had scrambled out on the jam and was clawing out the butt of a log with a rude sort of boat-hook.  It slid forward slowly as an alligator moves, three or four others followed it, and the green water spouted through the gaps they had made.  Then the villagers howled and shouted and scrambled across the logs, pulling and pushing the obstinate timber, and the red head of Namgay Doola was chief among them all.  The logs swayed and chafed and groaned as fresh consignments from upstream battered the now weakening dam.  All gave way at last in a smother of foam, racing logs, bobbing black heads and confusion indescribable.  The river tossed everything before it.  I saw the red head go down with the last remnants of the jam and disappear between the great grinding, tree-trunks.  It rose close to the bank and blowing like a grampus.  Namgay Doola wrung the water out of his eyes and made obeisance to the King.  I had time to observe him closely.  The virulent redness of his shock head and beard was most startling; and in the thicket of hair wrinkled above high cheek bones shone two very merry blue eyes.  He was indeed an outlander, but yet a Thibetan in language, habit, and attire.  He spoke the Lepcha dialect with an indescribable softening of the gutturals.  It was not so much a lisp as an accent.

‘Whence comest thou?’ I asked.

‘From Thibet.’  He pointed across the hills and grinned.  That grin went straight to my heart.  Mechanically I held out my hand and Namgay Doola shook it.  No pure Thibetan would have understood the meaning of the gesture.  He went away to look for his clothes, and as he climbed back to his village, I heard a joyous yell that seemed unaccountably familiar.  It was the whooping of Namgay Doola.

‘You see now,’ said the King, ’why I would not kill him.  He is a bold man among my logs, but,’ and he shook his head like a schoolmaster, ’I know that before long there will be complaints of him in the court.  Let us return to the Palace and do justice.’  It was that King’s custom to judge his subjects every day between eleven and three o’clock.  I saw him decide equitably in weighty matters of trespass, slander, and a little wife-stealing.  Then his brow clouded and he summoned me.

‘Again it is Namgay Doola,’ he said despairingly.  ’Not content with refusing revenue on his own part, he has bound half his village by an oath to the like treason.  Never before has such a thing befallen me!  Nor are my taxes heavy.’

‘O King,’ said I.  ’If it be the King’s will let this matter stand over till the morning.  Only the Gods can do right swiftly, and it may be that yonder villager has lied.’

’Nay, for I know the nature of Namgay Doola; but since a guest asks let the matter remain.  Wilt thou speak harshly to this red-headed outlander.  He may listen to thee.’