For a moment Anuza the Bear stood where the window once had been while gazing after him, his huge form filling up half the vacant space as he did so. Then slowly, and with that stately grace which the Indian never lacks, he returned to where we were--I being again crouched on the floor with my beloved one's head in my arms--and standing before Mary, he said: "White woman, were the words that fell from your lips to him the words of truth? Is he all that you have said?" "He is all that I have said," she answered, "ay, and a thousand times worse. Why do you ask?" Yet she told me afterwards that she already guessed the reason of his question. He made no reply but still stood gazing down at her from his great height, while she returned his glance fearlessly; then he turned to one of his warriors behind him and spoke to him in their own tongue, whereon the man vanished and came back a moment afterwards bearing in his hand one of my great bowls full of water. "Drink," he said to her, "and refresh yourself." When she had done so he passed the bowl to me, bidding me drink also. Likewise he let me bathe my darling's lips with the cool water and lave his temples, and he permitted Mr. Kinchella to drink; while, on Buck and Lamb making signs that they too were thirsty, water was fetched for them by another savage. Next, he sat himself down upon a couch that stood against the wall opposite to us and, with his chin in his hand, sat meditating long, while we could form no guess as to what shape those meditations were taking. Then once more, when our suspense was intense, he spake again, addressing me this time: "White maiden, you who rule as mistress of this abode, you and she spoke to him as one whom you had known before. Answer me, and answer truly, what know you of him? And has this, your sister," for so he seemed to deem Mary, "also spoken truly?" "Alas! alas!" I replied, "only too truly. He came to my father's house a slave bought with his money," here the Bear started and clenched his great hands; "yet was he not made a slave because of our pity for him. He ate my father's bread and, in return, he sought the dishonour of his daughter." Then, being sadly wrought upon by all the misery that had come upon us, I threw myself upon my knees before him as I had done to that other, and, lifting up my hands in supplication, I cried again, "Oh chief of the Shawnee warriors, if in your heart there is any of that noble spirit with which your race is credited, pity me and mine; pity us, pity us! Your fathers, as I have said, ate once of our bread, this house which you have to-night made desolate sheltered them once. Will you show us no more gratitude than that craven whom you, in your delusion, worship as a great medicine chief?"