ful moans, sighs, lamentations and howlings ! Have you courage to listen to me? . Can I suffer you to become the victims of your most cruel enemies? For, know that danger is near - the enemy is not far distant! "
An aged man, whose white hairs announced seventy winters, the grand counselor of the nation, and a juggler, replied
" A man who loves his tribe conceals nothing from the people. When danger is at hand, he speaks; when the enemy is in sight, he goes out to meet him. You say you have visited the region of souls; I believe in your words. I also, in my dreams, have frequently conversed with the ghosts of the departed. Tchatka, though young, has given us extraordinary proofs of his power; the last hour of Istagon was terrible, but who dares rise to blame you? You only predicted the two events: the chief died, and the Wahkon disappeared. I also performed wonders in my youth. Now I am old; but although my limbs begin to be feeble,
I have yet a clear mind. We will listen to your words with attention, and then we will decide on the course we ought to take. I have spoken."
The speech of the old man had a favorable effect on the whole assembly. Perhaps he was in Tchatka's secret. All the succeeding orations manifested a feeling of inclination to the murderer. The latter, reassured concerning the dispositions in regard to him, continued his recital with firmness and showed confidence respecting his future plans.
" Let those who have ears, hearken to me! those who have not, are free to go! You know me. I am a man of few words, but what I advance is true, and the events which I predict arrive. During five days and five nights my spirit was wafted amid the spirits of the dead, especially of our relatives and friends -of our friends whose bones are whitening on the plains, and which the wolves drag into their lairs -of our friends who, still unavenged, wander up and down, amid swamp and snow and ice, in sterile and forsaken deserts, which produce neither fruit, nor root, nor