he 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.

"What, the Koshare?" she cried in terror.

Convulsive sobs and groans were the only reply to her exclamation. They
amply confirmed her worst apprehensions. "The Koshare know all."
Unconsciously the cave-dweller uttered these words while staring into
the remnant of gleaming coals on the hearth; then she became si