"I also helped," added the Low Moo.
"I'm a quick study," Remo said. And everyone wondered what the freed white slave meant by saying, "I'm a rabbit lover."
"Does he mean that he eats them or mates with them?" the High Moo whispered to his daughter.
"I have seen him do neither," she replied, looking at Remo. He smiled at her. She smiled back, her eyes on his moon-pale arms. She had thought him too tall before, but now his long lean limbs interested her. She would ask her father later to grant her a special request about the former slave.
"Come, I hear the fires crackling," the High Moo called. "And the meat is on the spit. We must hurry, for the sun is dying."
They trudged up as they grew near the central hill that dominated Moo.
Remo noticed there were many mosquitoes and sand flies, but they left Chiun and him alone. It was a side benefit of the Sinanju diet that neither of them seemed to attract insects.
At length they reached the high plateau that was the heart of Moo.
"This is my city," the High Moo said proudly. He spread his well-muscled arms expansively.
Remo saw thatch huts on the outskirts. Snapping black eyes regarded him through the reed sides. He saw no women, much to his disappointment.
The inner buildings were stone. None were more than one story tall. But the palace was different. Made of some kind of kiln-fired brick, it reared up two stories. It had glassless windows and a flat roof with a gazebolike superstructure that Remo realized was the tallest point on the island. A vantage point.
"It's breathtaking," Remo said in Moovian. His sarcasm was lost on everyone except Chiun.
Chiun shot him a hard glance.
"Do not be so smug. I have seen your Newark."
"I'll take Newark over this jungle paradise."
"Wait until you see the women."
"I'm waiting. I'm waiting."
"Come," said the High Moo. And he led them to the courtyard of the palace.
In the stone-paved open area, fires burned in rows of rectangular earthen pits. A woman bent over a steaming pot. A man was singeing the body hair of a wild pig by hanging it over an open flame by its hind legs. There were carcasses on spits.
"There is your woman, Remo," Chiun whispered. Remo craned to see over the heads of the escorting soldiers. He saw a brown-skinned woman bending over one steaming pot. She wore a long Hawaiian-style grass skirt. Her long black hair swished as she stirred the pot's contents.
When the sounds of their approach caught her attention, she faced them expectantly.
She smiled. She had three teeth. Her face was as wrinkled as a walnut shell and her bare breasts hung like goatskin bladders.
"There," Chiun said. "Go to her, Remo, and tell her that you have crossed a mighty ocean just to behold her loveliness. I am certain she will be flattered by your attention. "
"Very funny," Remo fumed. "She's not my type."
"A breast is a breast," Chiun said flatly.
The High Moo motioned for them to form a circle around the fires. He signaled for Chiun to stand beside him and for his daughter to claim the other side. She motioned Remo to her side. The remaining villagers completed the circle.
The royal priest appeared inside the circle. "Bring the throne," he commanded.
"It is a beautiful throne," Chiun told Remo. "Gold, with many jewels. And a footrest carved of a single block of white jade."
Two men in loincloths came out of the palace bearing a squat wooden box with short legs.
"Here comes the footstool," Remo said. "Doesn't look like jade to me."
"It is wood. No doubt it is your seat," Chiun said smugly.
The stool was set behind the High Moo. "The Shark Throne," he said imperiously.
Remo looked closely. The top of the stool was covered in some kind of gray hide. At each end there were rolled protrusions resembling ornamental cushions, except that they were made of some cracked gray hide. Remo noticed flat, lifeless eyes at either end of these rolls, and suddenly realized that the stool was decorated with the heads of hammerhead sharks.
Remo grinned as the High Moo sat down. "Good thing they cut off the fin."
The royal priest motioned for the rest of the circle to sit. "Before we eat," he intoned, "we will show our visitors the greatness of Moo."
"This is the ceremonial dance," whispered Chiun. "In its fluid motions are the entire history of Moo. We will learn much of what has transpired since the days of Master Mangko. "
"Wonderful," Remo groaned. "I'm half-starved and we have to sit through a six-hour folk dance."
But then the circle parted at two points and Remo suddenly sat up very straight.
Two lines of native Moovian women slithered in and converged inside the circle. They wore skirts of grass or coarse black cloth low on their undulating hips. Colorful blossoms decorated their long hair and dazzling smiles split their happy faces. Their feet were bare, but Remo's eyes weren't on their feet, but on their exposed, jiggling breasts.
They began to sway in time to their clapping hands, which they held over their heads.
Remo's blank face broke out into a wide grin. "Moo," he said.
"Do not stare," Chiun remonstrated.
"I'm sure not going to look away," Remo said. "Don't want to insult our gracious hosts."
"Watch their hands. They tell the story. And their hips."
"I'm watching, I'm watching."
"But not like that."
"I don't know any other way to watch," Remo said as a line of sinuous hips undulated in perfect synchronization before his eyes. Firm young breasts bounced and swayed. The most dazzling smiles Remo had ever seen bathed him in a carefree radiance. Remo relaxed. All his cares seemed to ooze right out of him. He felt at peace.
The women were still dancing when the food began to arrive.
Chiun was speaking with the High Moo.