Nearer and nearer came the voices, and at last a group of men stood out
between the trees. They were warriors of the Tehuas, and in their midst
was a woman. She was speaking to one of them in the language of the
Rito, and all around her seemed to be attentively listening. He stared
at her,--stared, his eye-balls starting from their sockets, his face
colouring and then becoming almost black. Had any one seen Tyope at that
moment he must have taken him for some baffled and terrified demon from
the nether world.

He felt neither indignation nor passion. His heart stood still; so
wonderful was the discovery he was making that he was benumbed, body and
soul! For that woman who so confidently stood in the midst of the
enemies of her tribe, and who spoke to them with an air of assurance
bordering upon authority, uttering his own name time and again, was
Shotaye!

Once more his passion came back, and delirious with rage and frenzied
with fury he lifted the bow with the ready arrow. But so monstrous was
the sight to his eyes that his hand dropped paralyzed, and he was unable
to speed the shaft. He stood disarmed, and stared, gaping like a fiend
in despair who does not venture to oppose his master. He understood now
the connection of events, the unexpected ambush. He saw that it could
not have happened otherwise. He saw it clearly, to his shame! The woman
whom he had persecuted for years, and whom he was certain that he should
destroy utterly at the end of this campaign, had outwitted him and
destroyed his plans and hopes forever. Then let her suffer for it! He
raised his bow, dropped it again and stared. It was not pity that
fettered his otherwise ruthless hand; it was superstitious fear. That
Shotaye could have divined all his secret moves and could have saved
herself at the right moment filled him with astonishment and gradually
with invincible dread. She was no common witch! Such wonderful insight,
such clear perception of the means to save herself and at the same time
destroy him, were not human. Rage and passion disappeared; a chill went
through his frame and his lower jaw hung down like that of a corpse, as
he stared motionless, powerless to act and unable to move.

A change came over Tyope,--a change so sudden and so complete that he
was henceforth another man. Hope, ambition, revenge, vanished from his
thoughts, and with them all energy left him. The appearance of that
woman crushed him utterly. Shotaye appeared to hi