“It is fortunate for you, Hokosa,” said Nodwengo grimly when he had finished, “that I gave my word to the Messenger that no harm should come to you, seeing that you have repented and confessed.  This is certain, that Hafela has listened to your evil counsels, for I gave my consent to his flight from this land with all his people, and already his women and children have crossed the mountain path in thousands.  Well, this I swear, that their feet shall tread it no more, for where they are thither he shall go to join them, should he chance to live to do so.  Hokosa, begone, and know that day and night you will be watched.  Should you so much as dare to approach one of the gates of the Great Place, that moment you shall die.”

“Have no fear, O King,” said Hokosa humbly, “for I have emptied all my heart before you.  The past is the past, and cannot be recalled.  For the future, while it pleases you to spare me, I am the most loyal of your servants.”

“Can a man empty a spring with a pitcher?” asked the king contemptuously.  “By to-morrow this heart of yours may be full again with the blackest treachery, O master of sin and lies.  Many months ago I spared you at the prayer of the Messenger; and now at his prayer I spare you again, yet in doing so I think that I am foolish.”

“Nay, I will answer for him,” broke in Owen.  “Let him stay here with me, and set your guard without my gates.”

“How do I know that he will not murder you, friend?” asked the king.  “This man is a snake whom few can nurse with safety.”

“He will not murder me,” said Owen smiling, “because his heart is turned from evil to good; also, there is little need to murder a dying man.”

“Nay, speak not so,” said the king hastily; “and as for this man, be it as you will.  Come, I must take counsel with my captains, for our danger is near and great.”

So it came about that Hokosa stayed in the house of Owen.

On the morrow the Great Place was full of the bustle of preparation, and by dawn of the following day an impi of some seventeen thousand spears had started to ambush Hafela and his force in a certain wooded defile through which he must pass on his way to the mountain pass where his women and children were gathered.  The army was not large, at least in the eyes of the People of Fire who, before the death of Umsuka and the break up of the nation, counted their warriors by tens of thousands.  But after those events the most of the regiments had deserted to Hafela, leaving to Nodwengo not more than two-and-twenty thousand spears upon which he could rely.  Of these he kept less than a third to defend the Great Place against possible attacks, and all the rest he sent to fall upon Hafela far away, hoping there to make an end of him once and for all.  This counsel the king took against the better judgment of many of his captains, and as the issue proved, it was mistaken.

When Owen told Hokosa of it, that old general shrugged his shoulders.