Oh! Macumazana," he added, smiling a little, "why do you talk folly, who know well that one lives in yonder cave whom none may look upon and love, as Bena learned not long ago?
You are thinking that perhaps you might kill this Dweller in the cave with your weapons.

Put away that dream, seeing that henceforth those who watch you have orders to see that none of you leave this house carrying so much as a knife.

Indeed, unless you promise me that this shall be so you will not be suffered to set foot outside its garden until I return again.

Now do you promise ?" I thought a while and, drawing the two others aside out of hearing, asked them their opinion.
Ragnall was at first unwilling to give any such promise, but Hans said: "Baas, it is better to go free and unhurt without guns and knives than to become a prisoner once, as you were among the Black Kendah.

Often there is but a short step between the prison and the grave." Both Ragnall and I acknowledged the force of this argument and in the end we gave the promise, speaking one by one.
"It is enough," said Harut; "moreover, know, Lord, that among us White Kendah he who breaks an oath is put across the River Tava unarmed to make report thereof to Jana, Father of Lies.