"
"Will this Muley-Hassan be well armed?" asked Billy, in a voice
which was rather shaky, of their black friend.
"Plenty rifles," was Sikaso's brief reply.
"Don't you want a rifle or at least a heavy caliber shotgun?" asked
Billy.
The old warrior laughed and swung his mighty axe round his head till
the blade flashed like a continuous band of steel and the air
whistled at the cleavage of the sharp edge. Then he began to sing
softly a war-song which may be roughly rendered in English thus:
"At dawn I went out with my axe into the red fight;
Like the grass before the fire, like the clouds before the wind,
I drove them. I, Sikaso, I drove them.
There were rivers that day; but the rivers were red.
They were the rivers of the blood of my enemies;
With my war-axe I killed them.
This is the song of mighty Sikaso, and his terrible axe of death."
Although the boys of course did not understand the words, the fierce
voice in which the old warrior intoned the chant made them realize
what a terrible foe he was likely to prove in battle. But now as
Sikaso brought his song to a conclusion and rested his axe on the
ground, leaning on its hilt, he suddenly stiffened into an attitude
of close attention.
"Hark, my white brothers!" he cried, "the war-eagles are gathering
for the slaughter.
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