"My brother speaks bold words," he said. "The spirits of his fathers
cry out for the companionship of such a hero. When the wrongs of our
race have been avenged, I wish him good hunting in the Kingdom of the
Sunset."
They took me and stripped me mother naked. Has any man who reads this
tale ever faced an enemy in his bare feet? If so, he will know that the
heart of man is more in his boots than philosophers wot of. Without
them he feels lost and unprepared, and the edge gone from his spirit.
But without his clothes he is in a far worse case. The winds of heaven
play round his nakedness; every thorn and twig is his assailant, and
the whole of him seems a mark for the arrows of his foes. That
stripping was the thing that brought me to my senses. I recognized that
I was to be the subject of those hellish tortures which the Indians
use, the tales of which are on every Borderer's lips.
And yet I did not recognize it fully, or my courage must have left me
then and there. My imagination was still limping, and I foresaw only a
death of pain, not the horrid incidents of its preparation. Death I
could face, and I summoned up every shred of my courage. Ringan's voice
was still in my ear, his airy songs still sang themselves in my brain.
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