l shrugged his shoulders.

"The king would have done better to keep his regiments at home," he
said, "and fight it out with Hafela here, where he is well prepared.
Yonder the country is very wide, and broken, and it may well chance that
the _impi_ will miss that of Hafela, and then how can the king defend
this place with a handful, should the prince burst upon him at the head
of forty thousand men? But who am I that I should give counsel for which
none seek?"

"As God wills, so shall it befall," answered Owen wearily; "but oh! the
thought of all this bloodshed breaks my heart. I trust that its beatings
may be stilled before my eyes behold the evil hour."

On the evening of that day Hokosa was baptised. The ceremony took place,
not in the church, for Owen was too weak to go there, but in the
largest room of his house and before some few witnesses chosen from the
congregation. Even as he was being signed with the sign of the cross,
a strange and familiar attraction caused the convert to look up, and
behold, before him, watching all with mocking eyes, stood Noma his wife.
At length the rite was finished, and the little audience melted away,
all save Noma, who stood silent and beautiful as a statue, the light of
mockery still gleaming in her eyes. Then she spoke, saying:--

"I greet you, Husband. I have returned from doing your business afar,
and if this foolishness is finished, and the white man can spare you, I
would talk with you alone."

"I greet you, Wife," answered Hokosa. "Say out your say, for none are
present save us three, and from the Messenger here I have no secrets."

"What, Husband, none? Do you ever talk to him of certain fruit that you
ripened in a garden yonder?"

"From the Messenger I have no secrets," repeated Hokosa in a heavy
voice.

"Then his heart must be full of them indeed, and it is little wonder
that he seems sick," replied Noma, gibing. "Tell me, Hokosa, is it true
that you have become a Christian, or would you but fool the white man
and his following?"

"It is true."

At the words her graceful shape was shaken with a little gust of silent
laughter.

"The wizard has turned saint," she said. "Well, then, what of the
wizard's wife?"

"You were my wife before I became Christian; if the Messenger permits
it, you can still abide with me."

"If the Messenger permits it! So you have come to this, Hokosa, that you
must ask the leave of another man as to whether or no you should keep
you