Then, while she watched him curiously, Hokosa fetched his medicines and took from them some powder fine as dust and two tiny crowquills.  Placing a fruit before him, he inserted one of these quills into its substance, and filling the second with the powder, he shook its contents into it and withdrew the tube.  This process he repeated four times on each of the fruits, replacing them one by one in the basket.  So deftly did he work upon them, that however closely they were scanned none could guess that they had been tampered with.

“Will it kill at once?” asked Noma.

“No, indeed; but he who eats these fruits will be seized on the third day with dysentery and fever, and these will cling to him till within seven weeks—­or if he is very strong, three months—­he dies.  This is the best of poisons, for it works through nature and can be traced by none.”

“Except, perchance, by that Spirit Whom the white man worships, and Who also works through nature, as you learned, Hokosa, when He rolled the lightning back upon your head, shattering your god and beating down your company.”

Then of a sudden terror seized the wizard, and springing to his feet, he cursed his wife till she trembled before him.

“Vile woman, and double-faced!” he said, “why do you push me forward with one hand and with the other drag me back?  Why do you whisper evil counsel into one ear and into the other prophesy of misfortunes to come?  Had it not been for you, I should have let this business lie; I should have taken my fate and been content.  But day by day you have taunted me with my fall and grieved over the greatness that you have lost, till at length you have driven me to this.  Why cannot you be all good or all wicked, or at the least, through righteousness and sin, faithful to my interest and your own?”

“Because I hate you, Hokosa, and yet can strike you only through my tongue and your mad love for me.  I am fast in your power, but thus at least I can make you feel something of my own pain.  Hark!  I hear that woman at the gate.  Will you give her back the basket, or will you not?  Whatever you may choose to do, do not say in after days that I urged you to the deed.”

“Truly you are great-hearted!” he answered, with cold contempt; “one for whom I did well to enter into treachery and sin!  So be it:  having gone so far upon it, come what may, I will not turn back from this journey.  Let in that fool!”

Presently the woman stood before them, bearing with her another basket of fruit.

“These are what you seek, Master,” she said, “though I was forced to win them by theft.  Now give me my own and the medicine and let me go.”

He gave her the basket, and with it, wrapped in a piece of kidskin, some of the same powder with which he had doctored the fruits.

“What shall I do with this?” she asked.

“You must find means to sprinkle it upon your sister’s food, and thereafter your husband shall come to hate even the sight of her.”