Tyope indeed did not attach the slightest importance to Okoya personally.  The youth had no value for him at present; he did not dislike him; he did not notice him at all.  The boy was as unobjectionable to him as any one else whom he did not need for his purposes.  But there were points connected with the union that affected Tyope’s designs very materially, and these would come out in course of time, although he foresaw them already.  In the first place, intermarriage between the clans of Tanyi and Tyame was not favourable to his scheme, which consisted in expelling gradually or violently four clusters,—­Tanyi, Tyame, Huashpa, and Tzitz, from the Rito.  The last-named cluster he wanted to get rid of on account of Shotaye, whom he feared as much as he hated; the other three he wished to dispossess of their houses, which were the best secured against decay on the Tyuonyi, in order to lodge therein his own relatives and their partisans.  Had Okoya aspired to the hand of a daughter of the Turquoise clan, Tyope would have been in favour of his pretensions at once.

On the other hand, Okoya was very young; he might be flexible if properly handled; and in case the boy, whose father was already a Koshare and completely under Tyope’s influence, could be induced to join the society of the Delight Makers, it would be a gain fully compensating for the other disadvantages of the situation.  One more Koshare in Tanyi, and one who would dwell with Tyame, besides, after marriage, was a gain.  It would facilitate the realization of the plan of a disruption of tribal ties by creating disunion among the clans most powerful, after Shyuamo.  Tyope did not care for the expulsion of certain special clusters as a whole, provided a certain number and a certain kind of people were removed.  But the matter of making a Koshare out of Okoya was a delicate undertaking.  His wife had already suggested as much to him, and he had insinuated to her that she might try, cautioning her at the same time against undue precipitation.  Finally he left the whole matter in her hands without uttering either assent or dissent, and went about his own more important and much more intricate affairs.

Hannay awaited Okoya with impatience, but the youth had not appeared again.  He was afraid of Tyope and also afraid of her.  The warnings of his mother and Hayoue he had treasured deeply, and these warnings kept him away from the home of Mitsha.  Still he longed to go there.  Every evening since the one on which Say encouraged him to go, he had determined to pay the first regular visit, but as often as the time came his courage had abandoned him and he had not gone.  And yet he must either go or give up; this he realized plainly.  There might be a possibility of some other youth attempting the same, and then he would be too late, perhaps.  There was no thought on his part of giving up; he felt committed; and yet he was more afraid of going to call on the maiden than he would have been of encountering some wild beast.  Not on Mitsha’s account, oh no!  He longed to meet her at her own home, but he feared both her parents.