“I not Horatio.”
The old man brushed his hand across his eyes. “So you aren’t, but it’s all the same. Horatio must have sent you. Comfort comes by comforting, as I told Mahan last night.”
“My father, I know Mahan. My brother sent him to me.”
“What’s that?”
“I was fasting. My Noko told me to fast. A fasting boy may see his guide. I prayed. I heard a noise like the noise of Mugwuh, the Bear. I looked and saw Mahan.”
Dr. Rich received this primitive stuff in respectful silence.
“My father, I not think medicine man can sit in lodge and make Penaycee well by talking to the lightning. I not think what Pere La Hogue told my father, that antimoine he cure all. But my brother sent the Bear.”
Chapter 52. Tellurium
The chemist reached Ojeeg’s landing supposing that the chieftain’s estate extended to the shore. It had, originally, but most of it had vanished down a throat. Just now however the owner was sitting in his sailboat perfectly sober, and looking as if he owned that land down to the centre of the terrestrial sphere.
“Bo-jou, bo-jou, Ojeeg.”