One day, at the wells, she saw Taga'ka, and loved him; and meeting him alone in the forest, she fell down before him and clasped his feet.
"Lord Taga'ka," said she, "you are the one man in the world I desire."
"I am beyond desire," said Taga'ka, in his arrogant pride; "for I am of the king's regiment, and women are grass for our feet."
And not all her allurements could tempt him to so much as stroke her face; and the heart of the woman was wild with grief.
Then the king fell sick, and daily grew worse.
The witch-doctors made seven sacrifices, and learnt from grisly portents, which need not be described in detail, that the king should take a long journey to the far end of his kingdom, where he should meet a man with one eye, who would live in the shadow of the royal hut.
This he did, journeying for three months, till he came to the appointed place, where he met a man afflicted in accordance with the prediction. And the man sat in the shadow of the king's hut.
Now, it is a fact, which none will care to deny, that the niece of the chief witch-doctor had planned the treatment of the king. She had planned it with great cleverness, and she it was who saw to it that the deformed man waited at the king's hut.
For she loved Taga'ka with all the passion of her soul, and when the long months passed, and the king remained far away, and Lapai whispered into the young man's ear, he took her to wife, though death would be his penalty for his wrong-doing.
The other men of the royal regiment, who held Taga'ka a model in all things austere, seeing this happen, said: "Behold! Taga'ka, the favourite of the king, has taken a woman to himself. Now, if we all do this, it would be better for Taga'ka, and better for us. The king, the old man, will forgive him, and not punish us."