“I knew how it would be,” said the cacique.  “You have put her in a rage.  She thinks you want to insult her, and absolutely refuses to make herself hideous by sticking out her tongue.”

“She will of course do as she pleases.  But unless she shows me her tongue I cannot cure her.  I shall not even try.  Tell her so.”

To tell the truth I had really no great desire to look at the woman’s tongue, but having made the request I meant to stand to my guns.

After some further parley she yielded, first of all making the three caciques and Gahra look the other way.  The appearance of her tongue confirmed the theory I had already formed that she was suffering from dyspepsia, brought on by overeating and a too free indulgence in the wine of the country (a sort of cider) and indolent habits.

I said that if she would follow my instructions I had no doubt that I could not only cure her but make her as lithe and active as ever she was.  Remembering, however, that as even the highly civilized people object to be made whole without physic and fuss, and that the queen would certainly not be satisfied with a simple recommendation to take less food and more exercise, I observed that before I could say anything further I must gather plants, make decoctions, and consult the stars, and that my black colleague should prepare a charm which would greatly increase the potency of my remedies and the chances of her recovery.

Mamcuna answered that I talked like a medicine-man who understood his business and her case, that she would strictly obey my orders, and so soon as she felt better give me a condor’s skull helmet.  Meanwhile, I was to take up my quarters in her own house, and she ordered the caciques to send me forthwith three suits of clothes, my own, as she rightly remarked, not being suitable for a man of my position.

“Now, did not I tell you?” said Gondocori, as we left the room.  “Oh, we are going on swimmingly; and it is all my doing.  I do believe that if I had not protested that you were the greatest medicine-man in the world, and had come expressly to cure her, she would have had you roasted or ripped up by the man-killer or turned adrift in the desert, or something equally diabolical.  Your fate is in your own hands now.  If you fail to make good your promises, it will be out of my power to help you.  You heard how she treated your predecessor.”

CHAPTER XXIII.

YOU ARE THE MAN.

Early next morning I sent Gahra secretly up to the lake on the bastion for a jar of chalybeate water, which, after being colored with red earth and flavored with wild garlic, was nauseous enough to satisfy the most exacting of physic swallowers.  Then the negro sacrificed a cock in the royal presence, and performed an incantation in the most approved African fashion, and we made the creature’s claws and comb into an amulet, which I requested the queen to hang round her neck.