“Now tell me your tale; but say first, why are you so frightened?”
“I am frightened, master,” she answered, “lest any should have seen me enter here, for I have become a Christian, and the Christians are forbidden to consult the witch-doctors, as we were wont to do. For my case, it is——”
“No need to set it out,” broke in Hokosa, waving his hand. “I see it written on your face; your husband has put you away and loves another woman, your own half-sister whom you brought up from a child.”
“Ah! master, you have heard aright.”
“I have not heard, I look upon you and I see. Fool, am I not a wizard? Tell me——” and taking dust into his hand, he blew the grains this way and that, regarding them curiously. “Yes, it is so. Last night you crept to your husband’s hut—do you remember, a dog growled at you as you passed the gate?—and there in front of the hut he sat with his new wife. She saw you coming, but pretending not to see, she threw her arms about his neck, kissing and fondling him before your eyes, till you could bear it no longer, and revealed yourself, upbraiding them. Then your rival taunted you and stirred up the man with bitter words, till at length he took a stick and beat you from the door, and there is a mark of it upon your shoulder.”
“It is true, it is too true!” she groaned.
“Yes, it is true. And now, what do you wish from me?”
“Master, I wish a medicine to make my husband hate my rival and to draw his heart back to me.”
“That must be a strong medicine,” said Hokosa, “which will turn a man from one who is young and beautiful to one who is past her youth and ugly.”
“I am as I am,” answered the poor woman, with a touch of natural dignity, “but at least I have loved him and worked for him for fifteen long years.”