At last the patriarch raised his head high, so that the snow white hair fell back across his blanketed shoulders. He spoke so slowly that Terry was able to follow him with whispered interpretations into the anxious Major's ear. "Many rainy seasons have washed my hair white. I live to see strange things--I never thought to see a white man's face within my walls--except, perhaps, upon a spear, grinning. "When I was born--and no other man or woman of my tribe lives who saw the sun of that far day--they said, the wise men, that much good would come to my people before I died. "They read it in the stars, they said. No great ill has come, except to my own blood. All gone--wife, sons, grandsons. Never again will the Agong ring for one of Ohto's blood!" They felt the greater pity because the proud old chieftain demanded no sympathy, but merely stated the pathetic fact with a simple dignity. He was silent for a time, lost in an old man's memories. Then he turned to one of the four retainers who flanked his chair. "I am lonely," he said. "I would that Ahma would sit by me." As the swart Hillman crossed the springy floor and rapped gently upon a closed door, the Major saw that every black eye focussed upon it with eager expectancy. For a moment the room was palpitant with suspense. He looked to Terry for explanation, but turned back at the grinding crunch of the hingeless door which opened to frame a fairer vision than the Major had ever dreamed, asleep or awake. A white girl had stepped out of the other room and paused a moment against the dark background of the door to sweep the room with big black eyes. A single piece of white cloth, fringed with bat fur, was draped about her waist and fell below her knee, the ends passing up in front and back of her round body to fasten loosely at the right shoulder. This, with a little sleeveless garment fashioned, bolero-like, out of the delicate bat skins, and a pair of sandals contrived in such a way as to bring the hair of the deer skin against the little feet, was all she wore. Bronner scarcely realized the symmetry of the slender form, so lost was he in the spell of the dark eyes that plumbed his for one long second, leaving him tingling with a curious conviction that his soul had been bared. Vivid of white skin, of jet eyes, of a mass of midnight hair that hung loose to her waist, she radiated the fire and spirit of vibrant youth. "God! Such a girl--up here--all these years!" he breathed. She left the doorway and crossing the room with the light grace of slender, untrammeled limbs, sank down on a bench drawn up at Ohto's side. He set his withered hand contentedly upon the mass of her hair, and in a moment he spoke again. "If the prophecies of the wise men are to be fulfilled, it must be soon. The good fortune of which they spoke has not come to my people--and Ohto cannot tarry long in wait.... Death calls an old man.