"So they will all tell you. But that too depends upon what you want to believe. Naturally, Hamul-Kammesh had to make a prediction when Yasma was born; he's expected to make a prediction at the time of every birth. So as to be sure of himself, he foretold something that was not to happen for seventeen years, when everyone would have forgotten just what he said. Then, again, he said a stranger was coming to Sobul, and there too he was safe, because if no man had appeared there would certainly have been some male babe born during the year; and then Hamul-Kammesh would have said that that babe was the man he meant in his prophecy, but we should have to wait twenty years more until the man was grown up and the prediction could come true. Of course, when you unexpectedly arrived, he recognized his opportunity, and claimed to have foreseen your coming seventeen years before." "Nevertheless," I contended, doubtfully, "it _is_ a strange coincidence, is it not?" "If it were not for coincidences, Prescott, soothsayers would have to pass their days tilling the soil like the rest of us!" Thereupon Karem made an eloquent gesture toward the unplanted fields, where a score of men were bent low with spades and shovels. And, telling me that he had been idle too long already, he left me to my ruminations. But the effect of our conversation had been to lift me out of my dejection. I could no longer trouble myself about the old medicine-man and his predictions; could no longer believe that some dire fate hovered over us; could no longer feel my union with Yasma to be impossible. Whatever the obstacles, they were of a calculable and natural character; and whatever the dangers, they were not too great to confront and overcome. Reconsidering my problems in the light of Karem's wisdom, I determined to face the prospect of marriage with Yasma just as I might have faced a similar prospect with a girl of my own race; I resolved to go to her at once, to put the entire question before her, to reason with her, to plead with her, to overwhelm her objections, to wrest a promise from her, and so to fight my way to the speedy and triumphant consummation of our love. * * * * * The crucial moment was not long in coming. The next morning I went to see Yasma at her father's cabin; and finding her preparing to set out all alone for the woods, I invited myself to join her. Soberly we started out together while I chatted about trifles, as if unaware of the all-important turning point just ahead.--But could it be that the next few hours would mark the climax of both our lives? We had strolled perhaps two or three miles when we paused in a little wildflower glade beside a sunlit brook. With a cry of delight at the deep blue of the skies and the delicate immature green of the encircling foliage, Yasma threw herself down in the grass; and, not awaiting her invitation, I seated myself at her side.