"As soon as the moon gives light," Tyope carelessly replied.
"How many are there of you?"
"Why do you want to know this?" inquired the man from the Rito, in a husky voice.
His companion chuckled again and said nothing. He had put an imprudent question. He turned away carelessly, placed more wood on the fire, and poked the embers. Tyope looked up at the sky, and thus the vivid, scornful glance the other threw on his figure escaped him.
So far the conversation had been carried on in the Queres language; now the stranger suddenly spoke in another dialect and in a more imperious tone.
"Art thou afraid of the Dinne?"
"Why should I be afraid of them?" responded Tyope in his native tongue.
"Speak the tongue of the Dinne," the other sternly commanded, and a flash burst from beneath his eyebrows, almost as savage as that of a wolf. "Thou hast courted the people of my tribe. They have not sought after thee. Thou knowest their language. Speak it, therefore, and then we shall see." He straightened himself, displaying a youthful figure full of strength and elasticity.
Tyope took this change of manner very composedly. He answered quietly in the same dialect,—
"If thou wilt, Nacaytzusle, I can speak like thy people also. It is true I came for them, but what I wanted"—he emphasized the word—"was as much for their benefit as my own. Thou, first of all, wast to gain by my scheme." His eyes closed, and the glance became as sharp as that of a rattlesnake.