He looked at me with great curiosity, and I have often wondered since what kind of an impression I produced upon him.  My hat had fallen off, or I had knocked it off when I fired my last cartridge into his people, and forgotten to replace it, and my intractable hair, which was longer than usual, had not been recently brushed.  My worn Norfolk jacket was dyed with blood from a wounded or dying man who had tumbled against me in the scrimmage when the cavalry charged us, and my right leg and boot were stained in a similar fashion from having rubbed against my camel where a spear had entered it.  Altogether I must have appeared a most disreputable object.

Some indication of his opinion was given, however, in a remark, which of course I pretended not to understand, that I overheard him make to one of his officers: 

“Truly,” he said, “we must not always look to the strong for strength.  And yet this little white porcupine is strength itself, for see how much damage he has wrought us.  Also consider his eyes that appear to pierce everything.  Jana himself might fear those eyes.  Well, time that grinds the rocks will tell us all.”

All of this I caught perfectly, my ears being very sharp, although he thought that he spoke out of my hearing, for after spending a month in their company I understood the Kendah dialect of Bantu very well.

Having delivered himself thus he rode nearer and said: 

“You, Prophet Marut, my enemy, have heard the terms of me, Simba the King, and have accepted them.  Therefore discuss them no more.  What I have promised I will keep.  What I have given I give, neither greater nor less by the weight of a hair.”

“So be it, O King,” answered Marut with his usual smile, which nothing ever seemed to disturb.  “Only remember that if those terms are broken either in the letter or in the spirit, especially the spirit” (that is the best rendering I can give of his word), “the manifold curses of the Child will fall upon you and yours.  Yes, though you kill us all by treachery, still those curses will fall.”

“May Jana take the Child and all who worship it,” exclaimed the king with evident irritation.

“In the end, O King, Jana will take the Child and its followers—­or the Child will take Jana and his followers.  Which of these things must happen is known to the Child alone, and perchance to its prophets.  Meanwhile, for every one of those of the Child I think that three of the followers of Jana, or more, lie dead upon this field.  Also the caravan is now out of your reach with two of the white lords and many of such tubes which deal death, like that which we have surrendered to you.  Therefore because we are helpless, do not think that the Child is helpless.  Jana must have been asleep, O King, or you would have set your trap better.”

I thought that this coolly insolent speech would have produced some outburst, but in fact it seemed to have an opposite effect.  Making no reply to it, Simba said almost humbly: