'Athon Daze,' said Justus. 'He showed the boys how it should
manufactured be.'
'The old fox! Do you know that he has given you the Nilgiri
Nettle--scorpion--_Girardenia heterophylla_--to work up? No wonder they
squirmed! Why, it stings even when they make bridge-ropes of it, unless
it's soaked for six weeks. The cunning brute! It would take about half
an hour to burn through their thick hides, and then--!'
Gallio burst into laughter, but Lotta was weeping in the arms of the
Collector's wife, and Justus had covered his face with his hands.
_'Girardenia heterophylla!'_ repeated Gallio. 'Krenk, why _didn't_ you
tell me? I could have saved you this. Woven fire! Anybody but a naked
Kol would have known it, and, if I'm a judge of their ways, you'll never
get them back.'
He looked across the river to where the converts were still wallowing
and wailing in the shallows, and the laughter died out of his eyes, for
he saw that the Tubingen Mission to the Buria Kol was dead.
Never again, though they hung mournfully round the deserted school for
three months, could Lotta or Justus coax back even the most promising
of their flock. No! The end of conversion was the fire of the Bad
Place--fire that ran through the limbs and gnawed into the bones. Who
dare a second time tempt the anger of Dungara? Let the little man
and his wife go elsewhere. The Buria Kol would have none of them. An
unofficial message to Athon Daze that if a hair of their heads were
touched, Athon Daze and the priests of Dungara would be hanged by
Gallio at the temple shrine, protected Justus and Lotta from the stumpy
poisoned arrows of the Buria Kol, but neither fish nor fowl, honeycomb,
salt nor young pig were brought to their doors any more. And, alas! man
cannot live by grace alone if meat be wanting.
'Let us go, mine wife,' said Justus; 'there is no good here, and
the Lord has willed that some other man shall the work take--in good
time--in His own good time. We will go away, and I will--yes--some
botany bestudy.'
If any one is anxious to convert the Buria Kol afresh, there lies at
least the core of a mission-house under the hill of Panth. But the
chapel and school have long since fallen back into jungle.
AT HOWLI THANA
His own shoe, his own head.--_Native Proverb_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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