Part 28 (2/2)

With the barren women. Also her beauty goes, she is so thin with the famine.

THE CHISERA

(_Baring her arm._) I also am thin.

(_From this moment some perception of the pervasive misery of the situation enters her mind and begins to color her speech._)

CHIEF

Hunger and sickness and war have come into the camp because you kept not your heart, Chisera. Yet a greater than all these shall come upon you if you forget your tribal obligation.

THE CHISERA

(_Rising on one knee._) What obligation have I owed, Chief Rain Wind, and not remembered it?

CHIEF

That which lies upon all that have power with the Friend of the Soul of Man. Only the G.o.ds can save us, and only you know the true and acceptable road to them.

THE CHISERA

(_Rising and moving toward her hut._) I am overweary for the road; let Simwa find it.

(_An arrow, with a feather and a fragment of bark attached to it, is shot into the camp from the direction of the fighting._ PADAHOON _takes it up and carries it to the_ CHIEF, _the others crowding about._)

CHIEF

What was that?

PADAHOON

A message from the Fighting Men.

CHIEF

Read me the token.

PADAHOON

A vulture's feather and a bark of _whenonabe_. Defeat and flight.

WOMEN

Ai! Ai!

(_They throw up their arms in despair._)

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