answer a very simple question aroused his suspicions. He looked at the
stubborn boy for a moment, undecided whether he would not resort to
force. The child's taunts had mortified his pride in the first place;
now that child's reticence bred misgivings. He nevertheless restrained
both anger and curiosity for the present, not because of indifference
but for policy's sake, and turned to go. Shyuote looked for a moment as
if he wished to confess to his brother all that the latter inquired
about, but soon pouted, shrugged his shoulders, and set out after Okoya
in a lively fox-trot again.

The valley lay before them; they had reached the end of the grove.

Smiling in the warm glow of a June day, with a sky of deepest azure, the
vale of the Rito expanded between the spot which the boys had reached
and the rocky gateways in the west, where that valley seemed to begin.
Fields, small and covered with young, bushy maize-plants, skirted the
brook, whose silvery thread was seen here and there as its meanderings
carried it beneath the shadow of shrubs and trees, or exposed it to the
full light of the dazzling sun. In the plantations human forms appeared,
now erect, now bent down over their work. A ditch of medium size
bordered the fields on the north, carrying water from the brook for
purposes of irrigation. Still north of the ditch, and between it and the
cliffs, arose a tall building, which from a distance looked like a high
clumsy pile of clay or reddish earth.

This pile was irregularly terraced. Human beings stood on the terraces
or moved along them. Now and then one was seen to rise from the interior
of the pile to one of the terraced roofs, or another slowly sank from
sight, as if descending into the interior of the earthy heap. On the
outside, beams leaned against it, and on them people went up and down,