At least it seemed to Owen that presently once again he was gazing into the dense intolerable blackness of the night.  Then a marvel came to pass, for the blackness opened, or rather on it, framed and surrounded by it, there appeared a vision.  It was the vision of a native town, having a great bare space in the centre of it encircled by hundreds or thousands of huts.  But there was no one stirring about the huts, for it was night—­not this his night of trial indeed, since now the sky was strewn with innumerable stars.  Everything was silent about that town, save that now and again a dog barked or a fretful child wailed within a hut, or the sentries as they passed saluted each other in the name of the king.

Among all those hundreds of huts, to Owen it seemed that his attention was directed to one which stood apart surrounded with a fence.  Now the interior of the hut opened itself to him.  It was not lighted, yet with his spirit sense he could see its every detail:  the polished floor, the skin rugs, the beer gourds, the shields and spears, the roof-tree of red wood, and the dried lizard hanging from the thatch, a charm to ward off evil.  In this hut, seated face to face halfway between the centre-post and the door-hole, were two men.  The darkness was deep about them, and they whispered to each other through it; but in his dream this was no bar to Owen’s sight.  He could discern their faces clearly.

One of them was that of a man of about thirty-five years of age.  In stature he was almost a giant.  He wore a kaross of leopard skins, and on his wrists and ankles were rings of ivory, the royal ornaments.  His face was fierce and powerful; his eyes, which were set far apart, rolled so much that at times they seemed all white; and his fingers played nervously with the handle of a spear that he carried in his right hand.  His companion was of a different stamp; a person of more than fifty years, he was tall and spare in figure, with delicately shaped hands and feet.  His hair and little beard were tinged with grey, his face was strikingly handsome, nervous and expressive, and his forehead both broad and high.  But more remarkable still were his eyes, which shone with a piercing brightness, almost grey in colour, steady as the flame of a well-trimmed lamp, and so cold that they might have been precious stones set in the head of a statue.

“Must I then put your thoughts in words?” said this man in a clear quick whisper.  “Well, so be it; for I weary of sitting here in the dark waiting for water that will not flow.  Listen, Prince; you come to talk to me of the death of a king—­is it not so?  Nay do not start.  Why are you affrighted when you hear upon the lips of another the plot that these many months has been familiar to your breast?”

“Truly, Hokosa, you are the best of wizards, or the worst,” answered the great man huskily.  “Yet this once you are mistaken,” he added with a change of voice.  “I came but to ask you for a charm to turn my father’s heart——­”