‘Now what is the trouble between you two
villages?’ and the people points to a woman,
as fair as you or me, that was carried off,
and Dravot takes her back to the first village
and counts up the dead—eight there was.
For each dead man Dravot pours a little milk
on the ground and waves his arms like a
whirligig and, ‘That’s all right,’ says he.
Then he and Carnehan takes the big boss of
each village by the arm and walks them
down into the valley, and shows them how
to scratch a line with a spear right down
the valley, and gives each a sod of turf
from both sides o’ the line. Then all the
people comes down and shouts like the devil
and all, and Dravot says,—‘Go and dig the
land, and be fruitful and multiply,’ which
they did, though they didn’t understand.
Then we asks the names of things in their
lingo—bread and water and fire and idols
and such, and Dravot leads the priest of each
village up to the idol, and says he must sit
there and judge the people, and if anything
goes wrong he is to be shot.

“Next week they was all turning up the
land in the valley as quiet as bees and much
prettier, and the priests heard all the complaints
and told Dravot in dumb show what
it was about. ‘That’s just the beginning,’