they would protect their servants. But, as the Snake
knows, those men were not protected. Meanwhile reports came to me
from the women, and more especially from Saga, the granddaughter of my
brother, who was given as a bride to Jal. And this was their report:
that the dwarf behaved himself like a cur of low birth, and that when
he was in liquor, which was often, he babbled of his doings with the
Deliverer in other lands, though all that he said they could not tell me
because even now he has little knowledge of our tongue.

"When these tales came to my ears, you may guess, O People of the Mist,
that if I had doubted before, now my heart was shaken, and yet I had
no proof. In my darkness I prayed to the gods for light, and lo! light
came. Among the followers of these wanderers was a woman, and but
yesterday this woman visited me and confessed all. Forty years ago she
had fled from among our people--I know not why, but she took with her a
knowledge of our secrets. It was she who told them of the gods and the
story of the gods, and she instructed them how they should deceive us
and win the red stones which they desired. But now her heart repents her
of the evil, and I will summon her before you, that ye may judge between
me and these liars who have brought me to this shame. Bring forth the
woman."

There was a silence, and so intense was the interest that no sound came
from the audience, which watched for the appearance of the witness.
Presently Soa advanced from the shadows at the foot of the colossus, and
escorted by two priests took her stand in the centre of the semicircle
of judges.

"Speak, woman," said Nam.

Then Soa spoke. "I am of the People of the Mist," she said, "as ye may
know by looking on me and hearing me. I was the daughter of a priest,
and forty years ago, when I was young and fair, I fled this land for my
own reasons, and travelled south for three months' journey, till I came
to a village on a mighty river, where I dwelt for twenty years earning a
livelihood as a doctoress of medicine. Then there came into that village
a white man, whose wife gave birth to a daughter and died. I became the
nurse of that daughter; she is the woman who sits before you, and her
name is Shepherdess.

"Twenty years more went by, and I desired to return to my own land
that I might die among my people. I told the tale of my land and of its
wealth to the Shepherdess and to her husband the Deliverer, for I dared
not travel a