Who is he?"
"He is Tom," replied Ajor succinctly.
"There is no such people," asserted the Band-lu quite truthfully,
toying with his spear in a most suggestive manner.
"My name is Tom," I explained, "and I am from a country beyond
Caspak." I thought it best to propitiate him if possible, because
of the necessity of conserving ammunition as well as to avoid the
loud alarm of a shot which might bring other Band-lu warriors upon
us. "I am from America, a land of which you never heard, and I am
seeking others of my countrymen who are in Caspak and from whom I
am lost. I have no quarrel with you or your people. Let us go our
way in peace."
"You are going there?" he asked, and pointed toward the north.
"I am," I replied.
He was silent for several minutes, apparently weighing some thought
in his mind. At last he spoke. "What is that?" he asked. "And
what is that?" He pointed first at my rifle and then to my pistol.
"They are weapons," I replied, "weapons which kill at a great
distance." I pointed to the women in the pool beneath us. "With
this," I said, tapping my pistol, "I could kill as many of those
women as I cared to, without moving a step from where we now stand."
He looked his incredulity, but I went on. "And with this"--I
weighed my rifle at the balance in the palm of my right hand--"I
could slay one of those distant warriors.
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