'I cannot understand! Yesterday,' panted Justus, 'they had the Ten Commandments.--What is this? Praise the Lord all good spirits by land and by sea. Nala! Oh, shame!'
With a bound and a scream there alighted on the rocks above their heads, Nala, once the pride of the Mission, a maiden of fourteen summers, good, docile, and virtuous--now naked as the dawn and spitting like a wild-cat.
'Was it for this!' she raved, hurling her petticoat at Justus; 'was it for this I left my people and Dungara--for the fires of your Bad Place? Blind ape, little earthworm, dried fish that you are, you said that I should never burn! O Dungara, I burn now! I burn now! Have mercy, God of Things as They Are!'
She turned and flung herself into the Berbulda, and the trumpet of Dungara bellowed jubilantly. The last of the converts of the Tubingen Mission had put a quarter of a mile of rapid river between herself and her teachers.
'Yesterday,' gulped Justus, 'she taught in the school A,B,C,D.--Oh! It is the work of Satan!'
But Gallio was curiously regarding the maiden's petticoat where it had fallen at his feet. He felt its texture, drew back his shirt-sleeve beyond the deep tan of his wrist and pressed a fold of the cloth against the flesh. A blotch of angry red rose on the white skin.
'Ah!' said Gallio calmly, 'I thought so.'
'I should call it the Shirt of Nessus, but--Where did you get the fibre of this cloth from?'
'Athon Daze,' said Justus. 'He showed the boys how it should manufactured be.'
'The old fox! Do you know that he has given you the Nilgiri Nettle--scorpion--_Girardenia heterophylla_--to work up? No wonder they squirmed! Why, it stings even when they make bridge-ropes of it, unless it's soaked for six weeks. The cunning brute! It would take about half an hour to burn through their thick hides, and then--!'
Gallio burst into laughter, but Lotta was weeping in the arms of the Collector's wife, and Justus had covered his face with his hands.
_'Girardenia heterophylla!'_ repeated Gallio. 'Krenk, why _didn't_ you tell me? I could have saved you this. Woven fire! Anybody but a naked Kol would have known it, and, if I'm a judge of their ways, you'll never get them back.'
He looked across the river to where the converts were still wallowing and wailing in the shallows, and the laughter died out of his eyes, for he saw that the Tubingen Mission to the Buria Kol was dead.