Shotaye had been rummaging about in the inner cell of her rocky house in search of some medicinal plant, for that cell was her storeroom, laboratory, and workshop.  But as the room was without light at all, she had entered it with a lighted stick in her hand; and just as she had begun her search the flame had died out.  So after a vain attempt by groping in darkness, she crawled back to the exterior apartment and knelt down in front of the hearth to fan the coals with her breath and thus obtain another torch for her explorations.  At that moment the deerskin robe closing the entrance to her grotto was timidly lifted, and a feeble voice called the usual greeting.  “Opona,” replied Shotaye, turning toward the doorway.  A lithe figure crept into the cave.  When near the fireplace it stood still, enabling the mistress of the dwelling to recognize the features of Say, her friend and now fully recovered patient.

But how different was Say’s appearance from what it was when Shotaye a few days ago saw her last?  How changed,—­how thin and wan her cheeks, how sunken her eyes, how sallow and sickly her complexion!  Her face seemed to bear the seal of approaching death, for the eyes stared expressionless, the mouth twitched without speaking.  But one thought seized Shotaye, that her friend must be ill, very, very ill,—­that the old disease had returned in full force and had clutched her anew with perhaps irresistible power.  Anxiously she rose to her feet, and scanned the face of the invalid.

“What ails you, my sister,” she inquired tenderly.  “Has disease come on you again?  Speak, sa uishe, speak to me that I may know.”

Her visitor only shook her head and glanced about as if seeking a place to rest herself.  The medicine-woman gathered hurriedly a few robes, folded them so as to make a cushion near the hearth, and then gently urged Say to sit down on this soft and easy seat.  She yielded, and then remained motionless, her glassy eyes staring vacantly at the floor.

“Sister,” Shotaye reiterated, “sister, what ails you?  Speak, and I will do all I can for you.”  But the other merely shook her head and began to shiver.  Shotaye noticed the wristbands of red leather on her arms, and it startled her.  She asked eagerly,—­

“Why do you wear in trouble the colour that should make our hearts glad?  What has happened to you that causes you to seek relief for your distress?” The tone of her voice sounded no longer like entreaty; it was an anxious, nay stern, command.  Okoya’s mother raised her eyes with an expression of intense misery; she threw toward her questioner a look imploring relief and protection, and finally gasped,—­

“They know everything!” Then her head dropped on her knees, she grasped her hair, covered her face and chest with it, and broke out in convulsive sobs.

“They know everything!” Shotaye repeated, “Who know everything?” Suddenly the truth seemed to flash upon her mind.