He fell readily into the trap. My return to practical
subjects pleased him. He bade me hope that Oalava might yet be
mine in spite of my poverty. It was not always necessary to have
things to get a wife: to be able to maintain her was enough; some
day I would be like one of themselves, able to kill animals and
catch fish. Besides, did not Runi wish to keep me with them for
other reasons? But he could not keep me wifeless. I could do
much: I could sing and make music; I was brave and feared
nothing; I could teach the children to fight.
He did not say, however, that I could teach anything to one of
his years and attainments.
I protested that he gave me too much praise, that they were just
as brave. Did they not show a courage equal to mine by going
every day to hunt in that wood which was inhabited by the
daughter of the Didi?
I came to this subject with fear and trembling, but he took it
quietly. He shook his head, and then all at once began to tell
me how they first came to go there to hunt. He said that a few
days after I had secretly disappeared, two men and a woman,
returning home from a distant place where they had been on a
visit to a relation, stopped at the village.
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