The man whom the two Queres rightly took to be the civil chief, motioned them, adding, "Sit down."
They obeyed, and remained sitting with downcast looks. The councilmen glanced at them furtively from time to time. None of them spoke. At last a whisper was heard, and now a voice said in the Queres dialect,—
"Whither are you going?"
Hayoue started, and stared about in the room, looking for the man who in this foreign country spoke his own language. When he finally discovered that it was the small old man sitting by the side of the governor, he gaped at him with lips parted, and an expression akin to fright. He had acquired a dim knowledge of the fact that it might be possible for one man to know more than one language, but he had never met such a prodigy as yet. After the first surprise was over, he still stared at the speaker with inquisitive glances, eager to see whether it was possible to speak two dialects with one and the same tongue. Zashue was less startled. He knew that there were people who had learned a speech different from the one to which they were born. Therefore he replied to the query,—
"We are searching for our women, our daughters, and our children."
"Why do you look for them here? We have them not," said the old man.
"Because we have hunted for them everywhere else and have not found them."
"Are you alone?" continued his interlocutor.
"I and my brother are alone," Zashue asserted.
"Why did your koitza and makatza leave you?"