and the sunbeam which still enters
the apartment by the round hole above the fireplace strikes her features
full and enables us to scan them. The woman into whose dwelling we have
pryed, and who stands now in the dim chamber as sole occupant and owner,
is Shotaye, Tyope's former wife, and the friend who has given Say Koitza
such ill advice.

If Shotaye be a witch, she certainly is far from displaying the hag-like
appearance often attributed to the female sorcerer. There is even
something decidedly fascinating about her. Shotaye, although near the
forties, is for an Indian woman undoubtedly good-looking. No wonder some
other women of the tribe are afraid of her. She is tall and well
rounded, and her chest is of that fulnesss that develops at an early age
in the women of the Pueblos. Her face is even pretty,--her lips are
pouting and sensual, the nose small and shaped like a short, pointed
beak, the cheek-bones high, while the chin indicates remarkable
determination. Magnificent black hair streams down her back. It is as
full as a wave, as lustrous as polished obsidian.

Her dress consists of a buckskin wrap without girdle, embroidered at the
lower end with multi-coloured porcupine-quills. Bracelets of white
shells, a necklace of feldspar crystals and turquoises, and strings of
yellow cotton threads around her ankles complete the costume. Such is
the woman who has played and still plays an ominous part in the history
of Okoya's mother, and in the history of the people at the Rito de los
Frijoles. Now that we have seen her home and her person, let us proceed
with the tale of her doings on the afternoon to which the close of the
preceding chapter has been devoted.

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 t