Chapter III: The Culprit

The gray-bearded councilors waited, seated in a ring on the ancient stone seats of the Hill of Assembly. Uncomfortable seats they were, too, each made of two slabs of uncut rock, one piece serving as a back. But so had the council of the tribal elders sat in the days before their father’s fathers. Completely surrounding the stone seats of the council was a thick ring of trees which crowned the bare flat-topped hill, the sacred grove which no one might cut, and dedicated to the tribal gods. On the east the treetops still showed, reddened by the setting sun.

On the hill opposite the Hill of Assembly clustered the hundreds of round grass-thatched mushroom-like huts of the village of Warok, the chief. It was the chief town of the Hillmen and well named Kwallak the Stony.

Warok sat now, spear planted by his side, on the western edge of the ring of the elders, a gray-bearded warrior, scarred with ancient wounds, wearing the universal leather loincloth, and with a leopard skin slung like a cape from his shoulders. The elders were similarly clad, but their capes were of goatskin or of the smaller buck.

The speaker before them, his rapid gesticulations contrasting sharply with the quiet dignity of the Assembly, drew near to the end of his harangue.

“Whilst daily these goats, which I have counted before you, were being stolen, you, who are the chief, do nothing!” He paused to point an insolently accusing finger at the old chief, his voice rising to an ill-natured sneer as he continued: “But I, Sura, whom you will not permit to sit in the Assembly, no doubt because of my riches, I, and Menud my son, have discovered the thief whom you wished to hide.”

Warok’s voice, low toned but authoritative, cut in: “I hide no wrongdoers. I envy no man his riches, for I am too old to use them. You do not sit in the Assembly both because you are not of the age and because you are not of the true descent of the tribe. For such is the law. Continue!”

Sura, his thick lips thrust forward with malicious eagerness, his fat, weak-legged body quivering with fear and hate, had scarcely been able to hold back the climax of his speech.

“This same law, then, which is so rigid that for all my wealth in cattle and goats I may not sit in council, this same law will punish your son with death!” Sura paused, almost happily, to deliver his final blow.

“The penalty for stealing is death?”

Warok inclined his head in assent.

“Good! Since the thief, as Menud my son can prove--the thief whom you have protected but who must now die is--your son Garram!”

The soft fat hand of the speaker made a gesture of slaying, and for a moment there was silence. Then a scarred old warrior leaped to his feet.

“No man should be accused behind his back. Moreover, I have known the boy since he was a child. He is no thief!”

But his voice was drowned by the clamor, for Sura, with his wealth, had his own backing, and the voices of his supporters increased. Then at a sign from the chief, the sound gradually lessened.

“This is no matter of opinion. Not so do we do justice. O elder of the people.” The quiet voice of Warok further calmed the Assembly. “But having heard the charge, let us now hear the evidence. Let Menud speak.”

Menud, a tall, gangling youth, large built but clumsy, came forward. As with Sura, venom seemed to drive him where courage might have been insufficient. Almost with insolence he halted in front of the chief, and without greeting or preliminary he began.

“The words of my father are true. Garram does not hunt with the people of the tribe, nor in the tribal hunting grounds. Yet his foolish dog is always well fed, and I have watched him bring meat to your house.” The youth continued. “And if he does not hunt, whence comes this meat?” Menud hesitated. “Meat does not grow on trees, and his goats are few. So the meat was stolen!”

Here and there a gray beard nodded in agreement. But the old warrior who had first spoken in Garram’s defence had an objection.

“All this you say, but you say it in the boy’s absence, when he cannot deny. And how do we know your words are true? You have not seen the theft, nor can you produce the meat which, you say, has been eaten.” He paused. “Moreover, the stolen goats that Sura had counted are more than two men and dogs could eat!”

Menud waited, impatiently cropping the grass with prehensile toes, but with an evil grin of satisfaction. The game was being played into his hands. “I cannot watch each night to see a thief at work. But I have seen him returning with the price of our stolen goats, which he has sold in distant villages.”

Menud reached down to fumble for a moment with the knots of a bundle at his feet. Then spread the contents wide for the inspection of the Assembly. “Behold the price of the goats he could not eat, and the proof of his guilt!”

A horrified murmur rose from the Assembly. This seemed the last convincing proof of the crime of their chief’s son. A crime which had been on so large a scale that it must indeed involve the old warrior father as well.

Here and there elders rose stiffly from their stone seats. Supporting themselves on their staffs they came forward to inspect the bundle. Brass and copper rods, rolls of webbing-like cloth, and other articles which do duty for currency in a primitive country.

“This is all?” questioned one expert, scraping a rod with appraising thumbnail. For a moment Menud gulped and hesitated.

“Yes, all that I could find, though perhaps Garram has more hidden.”

One by one the old men, peering in the failing light, satisfied themselves that these articles were what they seemed, and one by one, silent, returned to their places. Of one race with Warok and Garram, their sympathies were with the aristocratic, haughty old chief and the independent young hunter, rather than with Sura and Menud, who seemed alternately to bully and grovel.

Among the Assembly Sura’s purchased influence began to wane beneath a growing pity for the young hunter, and in the mind of one lame and wizened ancient grew, slowly, a plan to help the boy. If others took his meaning and followed his lead, then the boy might yet be saved. It was worth trying. He rose awkwardly and spoke.

“Sura has said that fifteen of my seventeen goats have been stolen. It is false. I have lost no goats!” The well-meaning lie took a little time to sink in, but, pleased with himself, the old one had sat down again. He leaned forward and with the end of his staff administered a broad hint, in the shape of a prod in the ribs to another ancient on his left. With a vicious malediction upon the first ancient the second rose to frame, if possible, a better lie. To claim an increase in his herds, perhaps! But Warok intervened.

“My thanks for your kindness,” his level voice was heard through the gathering dusk. “But if he is guiltless my son will defend himself. If guilty he shall not escape the penalty!”

Then between the tree trunks in the dimming light the figure of a boy was seen approaching. Garram must, somehow, have learned what was in progress. Straight and unswerving he took his course to face his judges and accusers. Straight to face his trial for a crime whose punishment was death.

Through the onlookers beyond the circle of elders he came, and a path opened for him through the packed people.

He came within the ring of elders. Then the silence was broken.

“Seize him and bind him!” ordered Menud, and a group of those youths who followed him hastened to obey. Garram had not hesitated in his stride, but as they sprang forward an arrow appeared as if by magic on his bow. Swiftly Menud and his followers leaped for safety behind the seated elders.

The young hunter now stood before the elders, swaying slightly as he waited. At Garram’s back, teeth bared and mane bristling, Kon stood on guard. A moment Garram waited, then his bow clattered to the ground from his relaxed left hand, and with his right he strove to hold together the gaping wounds in his side.

Warok, in answer to his son’s question, detailed the charge. Something of pride was in the old man’s voice as he spoke. Garram seemed struggling with his weakness, and the silence grew tense. His words must make certain his death for, surely, in the minds of the elders, there could be no defence for this well-proved charge, and both friends and enemies knew that he would speak the truth at any cost.

But the young hunter, weak as he was, seemed to have no intention of defending himself.

“When Menud robbed my cave, these, then,” he pointed at the bundle Menud had opened--“these are all that he says he found?”

Voices out of the dusk confirmed. There was a movement of sympathy in the packed, straining crowd. Guilty as he was, he had made no attempt to deny his guilt.

“Then may his house and the house of Sura be searched for that which they have hidden and mean to steal. There is ten times that which has been brought before you!”

A murmured order from Warok dispatched a group of men to carry out the search.

It was now dark except for the vague light of a new moon. The voice of the boy, cool and even, like that of his father, seemed small and forlorn in the gloom.

“As to where I hunt and how, that is no matter for the Assembly, though none but a fool would hunt with Menud’s chattering band. As for the rest, I have no skill in talk, being only a hunter.”

Interest deepened. This seemed no confession of guilt. Nor yet a defence. A measure of reassurance came to Warok and to those who knew the boy best.

“I bring you things which may be touched and seen, not words which may lie. You may then touch, and see, and judge.”

The quiet voice ceased. There was a rustle in the darkness, and heads were turned toward a small red glow which wove in and out among the trees. More spots of light came into sight, slowly tracing along the path from the village to the assembly ground, growing larger as they approached. Once more the crowd opened, this time to make way for a party of men with smoldering grass torches and carrying handfuls of bones and half-bleached skulls of goats. In the distance a group of men struggled with some heavy and awkward load, grunting and cursing with their effort.

The foremost cast down his burden, opened out his grass torch and swung it at arm’s length till it burst into a blaze.

“By your son’s orders we bring these, O Chief. The cave was full of the bones of goats--as if all the goats of the village had been slaughtered for one feast.” The speaker held the blazing torch down so that the onlookers might see, while more and more bones were thrown upon the pile.

“And behind---- Ah, here he is.” With something of the pride of a showman the speaker turned. “The stealer of these goats, the eater of this feast, whom your son Garram has killed single handed!”

And with a thud ten staggering men let fall the body of a magnificent leopard.

More and more torches were fanned into a blaze, till even the outermost spectators could make out the huge tawny shape with its black spots. Guttural murmurs of amazement were heard. Never in the memory of living man had such a great beast been seen, alive, trapped, or dead. Kon, growling, shrank back against Garram, who, for the moment forgetting his wounds, had sat down to enjoy the beginning of his triumph. Then he spoke.

“Menud sought the thief in the wrong cave. He should have sought higher on the path, nearer the village. Though perhaps had he done so he might have joined the goats!” With difficulty the young hunter kept the ring of exultation out of his voice.

Then, before people could recover from their amazement, there was another interruption. The men sent to search the house of Sura and Menud were returning. More torches flared as they cast down their burdens, load after load of jangling brass and copper rods, neat rolls of narrow cloth tightly wound to resist moisture. Words were unnecessary. Garram’s defence and the proof of Menud’s intent to steal lay in shining piles on the ground for all to see.

Garram, supported weakly on one elbow, suddenly crumpled up and lay still. Instantly Warok was at his side. Weak from the pain and loss of blood from the wounds left by the leopard’s claws, Garram had fainted. After a swift but practised examination of the wounds the chief spread his own leopard-skin robe and placed the boy gently upon it, while Kon stood worriedly by.

Menud and his father had disappeared, but shouts of vengeance, upon the two plotters rose fiercely out of the torchlit darkness. The old chief turned angrily upon the crowd.

“When the sun sank you would have had me kill my son. Now that you have seen his deeds you would turn upon his accusers. Think you that he needs your help for vengeance upon such rats as those?”

Stooping down he gathered the still unconscious body in his powerful arms. Carrying it as though it were a child, and followed by Kon, the old chief passed proudly out of the Assembly.

But Menud and Sura were still free to plot again.

THE RAINMAKER’S ADVICE