we see? A man sits near the dying woman. He lifts up his hands
and stares; it is the medicine-man, and he has done his utmost; he is
powerless, his art useless. What he did was done in the conviction that
spiritual influences, however grossly conceived and coarsely applied,
could compel the soul to master the body's ailment, could prop up the
sinking machinery and strengthen the motive power without regard to its
decaying tools. To-day, provided the body is helped along with physical
means, the soul would remain against its will, or against the will of
what stands in closer relation to it originally than the form which it
has animated here beneath. If mind and body were one, either method
could be successful. Neither is, when death steps in to proclaim their
separation.

By the side of the shaman a young man leans against the wall. He is
well-built and lithe. His head is bent so low in grief that the dark
hair streams over his face, concealing his features. The youth is
mourning, mourning deeply. Over what? Over the body or its sufferings?
No, he mourns because of an impending separation. From what? From the
form of her whom he will miss? No, for that form will not leave this
earth in substance. He mourns for something that goes beyond his grasp,
and remains beyond it so long as he himself moves upon this earth.

Mitsha also is here. She has properly no right to be for she does not
belong to the same clan as Say; but she has remained, and nobody has
objected to her presence. She has not craved permission, it has come by
tacit consent. Mitsha has felt that Say was approaching the point when
the soul breaks loose and flits to another realm, and she wishes to
remain with her to the last. If that soul should drop like a shrivelled
fruit, to decay and perish forever, nobody would bend to gaze fondly at
it. But if it flutter upward, we follow it with our eyes as long as we
can, unconsciously thinking, "How happy you are, free now; and how much
I wish to be with you." The very grief caused by the separation, the
longing, the clinging to him or to her whom we know to be leaving us,
are signs that there is something beyond, something which we are loath
to lose but sure to find again elsewhere, Mitsha has known Okoya's
mother but little, but the fearful distress of the past two months has
brought them together at last. Now the girl weeps, but not loudly, at
the thought of separation. If death be annihilation, tears are of no
av