“Where is Sosee?” asked Koree.
“Where is Sosee?” asked the mother at the same time.
Both looked at each other in amazement, and no words were needed to express their mutual disappointment.
“Have you restored to me one child only to lose another?” asked the mother reproachfully.
“Have I lost a lover,” replied Koree, “only to rescue a baby?”
Both, forgetful of what they had, were about to quarrel over what they had not. Koree, however, was the more inconsolable, because he had lost all that he went for, which he had, indeed, before starting, and went to retain rather than to acquire. For he went for Sosee rather than for Orlee, seeking the latter only that he might not lose the former.
“Wait,” said Gimbo, the grandfather of Sosee, “and she may yet return. She is doubtless in the swamp detained by some attraction or difficulty.”
“Sosee, unincumbered and swift of foot,” replied Koree, “would not be longer in returning than I with the child. She has either been re-captured by the Lali, or else met with a disaster in the swamp. Perhaps the lion I saw chasing the tapirs devoured her;” and he grieved like Pyramus mourning for Thisbe.
Little did he think that at that moment she was the cause of a quarrel between Oboo and Ilo in the far off land of the Lali. The mother was less concerned, both because she was in the first joys of receiving a restored child, and because, in addition to the uncertainty as to whether Sosee would not return, it was not customary for our ancestors of that day to concern themselves about their grown children. When their offspring had passed the disabilities of infancy, they were allowed to shift for themselves. Orlee, being still a child, was, therefore, dearer to the mother than Sosee; and so, measurably content with the former, she was willing to trust the other to her lover or herself.