OLD FRIENDS

The sunrise gun awoke me. I rolled out of my blanket, saw the white cannon-smoke floating above the trees, ran down to the river, and plunged in.

When I returned, the Sagamore had already broken his fast, and once more was engaged in painting himself — this time in a most ghastly combination of black and white, the startling parti-coloured decorations splitting his visage into two equal sections, so that his eyes gleamed from a black and sticky mask, and his mouth and chin and jaw were like the features of a weather-bleached skull.

“More war, O Mayaro, my brother?” I asked in a bantering voice. “Every day you prepare for battle with a confidence forever new; every night the army snores in peace. Yet, at dawn, when you