p my bonnie brown hair."

This was the song McDermot sang to himself as he walked up the great
court-yard of the Palace, past the lattice windows, behind which the
silent women of the late Dakoon's household still sat, passive and
grief-stricken. How knew they what the new Dakoon would do--send them
off into the hills, or kill them? McDermot was in a famous humour, for
he had just come from Pango Dooni, the possessor of a great secret,
and he had been paid high honour. He looked round on the court-yard
complacently, and with an air of familiarity and possession which seemed
hardly justified by his position. He noted how the lattices stirred as
he passed through this inner court-yard where few strangers were ever
allowed to pass, and he cocked his head vaingloriously. He smiled at the
lizards hanging on the foundation stones, he paused to dip his finger
in the basin of a fountain, he eyed good-humouredly the beggars--old
pensioners of the late Dakoon--seated in the shade with outstretched
hands. One of them drew his attention, a slim, cadaverous-looking wretch
who still was superior to his fellows, and who sat apart from them,
evidently by their wish as much as by his own.

McDermot was still humming the song to himself as he neared the group;
but he stopped short, as he heard the isolated beggar repeat after him
in English:

"He promised he'd bring me a bunch of blue ribbons,
To tie up my bonnie brown hair."

He was startled. At first he thought it might be an Englishman in
disguise, but the brown of the beggar's face was real, and there was no
mistaking the high narrow forehead, the slim fingers, and the sloe-black
eyes. Yet he seemed not a native of Mandakan. McDermot was about to ask
him who he was, when there was a rattle of horse's hoofs, and Cumner's
Son galloped excitedly up the court-yard.

"Captain, captain," said he, "the Red Plague is on the city!"

McDermot staggered back in consternation. "No, no," cried he, "it is not
so, sir!"

"The man, the first, lies at the entrance of the Path by the Bazaar. No
one will pass near him, and all the city goes mad with fear. What's to
be done? What's to be done? Is there no help for it?" the lad cried in
despair. "I'm going to Pango Dooni. Where is he? In the Palace?"

McDermot shook his head mournfully, for he knew the history of this
plague, the horror of its ravages, the tribes it had destroyed.

The beggar leaned back against the cool wall and laug