its fiercest, Zeppa stalked into
the midst of them with Lippy on his shoulder, looked round with a
benignant expression of countenance, delivered the child to her mother,
and went off to his hut without uttering a word. The council
immediately dissolved itself and retired humiliated.

It was during one of Zeppa's occasional absences that the Ratura tribe
of natives, as before mentioned, decided to have another brush with the
Mountain-men, as they styled their foes.

We are not sure that the word used in the Ratura language was the exact
counterpart of the words "brush" and "scrimmage" in ours, but it meant
the same thing, namely, the cutting of a number of throats, or the
battering in of a number of human skulls unnecessarily.

Of course there was a _casus belli_. There always is among savage as
well as civilised nations, and it is a curious coincidence that the
reasons given for the necessity for war are about as comprehensible
among the civilised as the savage. Of course among civilised nations
these reasons for war are said to be always good. Christians, you know,
could not kill each other without _good_ reasons; but is it not strange
that among educated people, the reasons given for going to war are often
very much the reverse of clear?

The origin of the war which was about to be revived, besides being
involved in the mists of antiquity, was somewhat shrouded in the clouds
of confusion. Cleared of these clouds, and delivered from those mists,
it would have been obviously a just--nay, even a holy war--so both
parties said, for they both wanted to fight. Unfortunately no living
man could clear away the clouds or mists; nevertheless, as they all saw
plainly the exceeding righteousness of the war, they could not in
honour, in justice, or in common sense, do otherwise than go at it.

At some remote period of antiquity--probably soon after the dispersion
at Babel--it was said that the Mountain-men had said to the Raturans,
that it had been reported to them that a rumour had gone abroad that
they, the men of Ratura, were casting covetous eyes on the summit of
their mountain. The Raturans replied that it had never entered into
their heads either to covet or to look at the summit of their mountain,
but that, if they had any doubts on the subject, they might send over a
deputation to meet a Ratura deputation, and hold a palaver to clear the
matter up.

The deputations were sent. They met. They palavered for ab