If Multnomah was grieved at his daughter's death, if his heart sunk at the unforeseen and terrible blow that left his empire without an heir and withered all his hopes, no one knew it; no eye beheld his woe. Silent he had ever been, and he was silent to the last. The grand, strong face only grew grander, stronger, as the shadows darkened around him; the unconquerable will only grew the fiercer and the more unflinching. But ere the moon that shone first on Wallulah's new-made cairn had rounded to the full, there was that upon him before which even his will bowed and gave way,--death, swift and mysterious. And it came in this wise. We have told how at the great _potlatch_ he gave away his all, even to the bear-skins from his couch, reserving only those cases of Asiatic textures never yet opened,--all that now remained of the richly laden ship of the Orient wrecked long ago upon his coast. They were opened now. His bed was covered with the magnificent fabrics; they were thrown carelessly over the rude walls and seats, half-trailing on the floor; exquisite folds of velvet and damask swept the leaves and dust,--so that all men might see how rich the chief still was, though he had given away so much. And with his ostentation was mixed a secret pride and tenderness that his dead wife had indirectly given him this wealth. The war-chief's woman had brought him these treasures out of the sea; and now that he had given away his all, even to the bare poles of his lodge, she filled it with fine things and made him rich again,--she who had been sleeping for years in the death-hut on _mimaluse_ island. Those treasures, ere the vessel that carried them was wrecked, had been sent as a present from one oriental prince to another. Could it be that they had been purposely impregnated with disease, so that while the prince that sent them seemed to bestow a graceful gift, he was in reality taking a treacherous and terrible revenge? Such things were not infrequent in Asiatic history; and even the history of Europe, in the middle ages, tells us of poisoned masks, of gloves and scarfs charged with disease. Certain it is that shortly after the cases were opened, a strange and fatal disease broke out among Multnomah's attendants. The howling of medicine-men rang all day long in the royal lodge; each day saw swathed corpses borne out to the funeral pyre or _mimaluse_ island. And no concoction of herbs,--however skilfully compounded with stone mortar and pestle,--no incantation of medicine-men or steaming atmosphere of sweat-house, could stay the mortality.