Then Grady made the mistake. He made it in full view of Anla's mother-in-law, who sat peering balefully out from her special room in the corner of the Chief's house; and of Anla's wife, and of his wife's innumerable relations, who were clustered on the porch. When Grady saw their silent staring, he looked down at his feet, and he saw what it was that he had done. Anla saw it too, and the two men looked up again, and at each other, very gravely. * * * * * Grady did not say he was sorry. It would have been of no use whatever. Nor did he point out that the sun came out so infrequently that his mistake was one which could be excused. Among the Kya there are very few mistakes which can be excused, and stepping on the shadow of a chief is not one of them. Neither did Anla make any reference to the long friendship between them, because there would have been no point in doing so. Anla's eyes grew darker, and the wrinkles at their corners deepened, but his words were calm, the correct words for such a time. "Your name was Shassa," Anla said. "You have broken the ghost-cloak of the Chief, and your name cannot be Shassa. From this place and this time I take back your name, Shassa, and you have no name." Grady did not say anything, because a Kya cannot hear the words of a man without a name; besides, there was nothing to say, though a great deal to think about. The _Berenice_ was due in four days. Four days during which a man without a name would have to avoid the custom which decreed that such a man must be killed. Killed as soon as possible, because each day he continued to live was a day which must be removed from the calendar, a day on which no man's birth date might be celebrated, or any animal killed for food, or any root taken from a garden. Grady turned, and walked slowly, with a stiff back, down the path away from the Chief's house. To run, or to show fear, would be fatal; the Kya were themselves in a state of shock at the thing which had happened, and it would be an hour or more before they began to prepare for what they had to do. Therefore, Grady held his spine straight, feeling a cold spot between his shoulderblades where the first iron-headed arrow might strike in. Ahead of him, through the village, the silent children ran on light feet, darting into the houses and out again--the children, who were the bearers of news. He saw three of them dash toward the agency, and enter it; and in a moment, as he came up the path, Shallra came out on the porch, carrying a clay pot in her hands. "You who were Kotasa," she said, "take this, and drink it to free me of your name." It was the standard form of divorce among the Kya, and if the eyes of Shallra had not been bright with tears, Grady might have slipped. He took the clay pot, but he did not drink, because he could smell the faint and bitter odor about it, which was not the odor of the fruit wine that it should have held. "Why?" he asked her, quietly.