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husbands, kept them for a while, then cast them out,
    or perhaps killed them, and took others. Nor might they resist him,
    because he was sacred and could do what he pleased. Only, as has been
    said, any man might challenge him to single combat, for to slay him
    otherwise was forbidden and would have caused the slayer to be driven
    out to starve as one accursed. Then, if the challenger prevailed, he
    took the cave of this sacred one, with the women and all that was his,
    and became chief in his place, until in his turn he was slain in like
    fashion. Thus it came about that no chief of the tribe lived to be
    old, for as soon as years began to rob him of his might, he was killed
    by someone younger and stronger who hated him. For this reason also
    none desired to be chief, knowing that, if he were, sooner or later he
    would die in blood, and it was better to suffer oppression than to
    die.
    Yet Wi desired it because of the cruelties of Henga and his misrule of
    the tribe which he was bringing to misery. Also he knew that, if he
    did not kill Henga, Henga would kill him from jealousy. Long ago he,
    Wi, would have been murdered had he not been beloved by the tribe as
    their great hunter who won them much of their meat food, and therefore
    a man whose death would cause the slayer to be hated. Yet, fearing to
    attack him openly, already Henga had tried to do away with him
    secretly; and a little while before, when Wi was visiting his pit
    traps on the edge of the forest, a spear whizzed past him, thrown from
    a ledge of overhanging rock which he could not climb. He picked up the
    spear and ran away. It was one which he knew belonged to Henga;
    moreover, its flint point had been soaked in poison made from a kind
    of cuttlefish that had rotted, mixed with the juice of a certain herb,
    as Wi could tell, for sometimes he used this poison to kill game. He
    kept the spear and, save to his wife Aaka, said nothing of the matter.
    Then followed a worse thing. Besides his son Foh, a lad of ten years
    whom he loved better than any thing on earth, he had a little daughter
    one year younger, named Fo-a. This was all his family, for children
    were scarce among the tribe, and most of those who were born died
    quite young of cold, lack of proper food, and various sicknesses.
    Moreover, if girls, many of them were cast out at birth to starve or
    be devoured by wild beasts.
    One evening, Fo-a was missing, and it was thought that wood wolves had
    taken her, or perhaps the bears that lived in the forest. Aaka wept,
    and Wi, when there was no one to see, wept also as he searched for
    Fo-a, whom he loved. Two mornings afterward, when he came out of his
    hut, near to the door place he found something wrapped in a skin, and,
    on unwinding it, saw that it was the body of little Fo-a with her neck
    broken and the marks of a great hand upon her throat. He knew well
    that Henga had done this thing, as did everybody else, since among the
    tribe none murdered except the chief, though sometimes men killed each
    other fighting for women, of whom there were so few, or when they were
    angry. Yet, when he showed the body to the people, they only shook
    their heads and were silent, for had not Henga the right to take the
    life of any among them?
    Then it was that Wi’s blood boiled within him and he talked with Aaka,
    saying that it was in his heart to challenge Henga to fight.
    “That is what he wishes you to do,” answered Aaka, “for being a fool,
    he thinks himself the stronger and that thus he will kill you without
    reproach, who otherwise, when he is older, will kill him. Also I have
    wished it for long who am sure that you can conquer Henga, but you
    will not listen to me in this matter.”
    Then she rolled herself up in her skin rug and pretended to go to
    sleep, saying no more.
    In the morning she spoke again and said:
    “Hearken, Wi. Counsel has come to me in my sleep. It seemed to me that
    Fo-a our daughter who is dead stood before me,