"Hayoue," said he, "you are good and wise, much wiser than I; still, listen to me once more."
Louder and nearer sounded the thunder. Hayoue bent over toward Okoya, a close, attentive, sympathizing listener. The young man related everything,—his relations with Mitsha, how he had quarrelled with his mother, and the conclusions at which he had arrived touching his mother's evil designs and practices. At this point Hayoue began to laugh, and laughed till he coughed.
"And you really believe this!" he cried. But at once he grew very serious and even stern. "Motātza, it is not right in you to think thus of your mother. Say Koitza is good; she is better than most women at the Tyuonyi, far too good for my brother Zashue, and better than I or you. I know her well, and even if there should be witches, which I do not believe—"
A loud thunderpeal caused the mountains to tremble. Hayoue started, shook his head, and muttered,—
"They call loudly. It may be that there are witches. At all events"—he raised his voice again—"if there are such women, your mother does not belong to them. It is not right, brother, for you to think such things of your mother. You have done her a great wrong, for I tell you again she is good and she is your best friend. Where do you belong? Whose blood is yours? Is it your father's? Are the Water people your people? No, Tanyi is your hanutsh. Your mother's clan are your kindred. Mind, satyumishe, our life is in our blood, and it is the blood of her who gave you life that flows in your veins. When you say aught against your mother, you tarnish your own life."
"But why does she not want me to go with Mitsha?" Okoya asked, and pouted.
"Don't you see why, satyumishe? Don't you understand it? Say knows Tyope; she mistrusts him and is even afraid of him. Mitsha is a good girl, and your mother has nothing against her; but she is her mother's daughter, and that mother is Tyope's wife. If Mitsha becomes your wife you will go and live with her, until Tyame hanutsh has a house ready for Mitsha. You will even have to stay at the home of Tyope's wife. Now I cannot say that Hannay, the wife of Tyope, is really bad; she is not nearly as bad as he, but then Hannay is silly and allows him to make her his tool. Everything that concerns her clan—things that he of course is not entitled to know—she tattles to him; and she tells him everything else that she sees, hears, or imagines. I know it to be so. Now, your mother is afraid lest through Mitsha's mother, first Mitsha, afterward through her you, might become entangled in the coils of that sand-viper Tyope. For I tell you, motātza,"—his eyes flashed, and he shook his clenched fist toward the houses of the Eagle clan,—"that man is a bad man; he is bad from head to foot, and he thinks of nothing but injury to others for the sake of his own benefit."
"But what has Tyope done? How do you know that he is such a bad man?"
"That's just it. He never acts openly. Like the badger, after which he is named, he burrows and burrows in darkness and covers up his ways; and when the earth caves in beneath those who walk over his trap and they fall, he is already far away, and looks as innocent and bland as a badger on top of the ground. But if you follow him, then he will turn around and snap at you, like a real tyope. Your mother is right in fearing him; perhaps not so much on her account as for your sake. You and Mitsha are both very young, and that man knows how to entrap such little rabbits."
Okoya could not deny the truth of his uncle's speech. He felt that he had wronged his mother, had misinterpreted her motives; and now he was ashamed of himself. Nevertheless Indian nature is exceedingly wary and suspicious in all important matters, and it struck him that Hayoue was trying to dissuade him from his project of union with Mitsha. Knowing the propensities of his gallant uncle in the matter of women, he began to suspect that the latter might wish to estrange him from the girl or frighten him off in order to step into his shoes. So he assumed an air of quiet indifference and said,—