Watfa withdrew to a spot far from the clamor and sat crouched upon her heels, a wave of buried grief brimming from her eyes. She had been in the city, and had learned of the catastrophe... the catastrophe of the sale of her land. It would overturn the circumstances of her tribe, turning their ease into toil, their pride into humiliation, their settled life into wandering and homelessness.
Watfa's tender heart refused to let her disclose to her people what she had learned. Let them enjoy their happy hours... Who knows?... Perhaps this night would be the last of their nights in a home ground where they had grown up and become its protectors, a ground whose soil had mingled with the water of their brows, with their tears and their blood, and with the dust of the graves of their dear ones.
But the girl was in pressing need to pour out what was working in her breast, for in the pouring out there is a lightening of the heart's anguish and the soul's sorrow. She looked about her and found none but her ewe; so she clasped her to her breast, confiding to her her revolt:
"Gone are the days of happiness, my ewe, when you grazed under my care and we roamed together in the shade of my tribe — strong, mighty, lofty the tree of its pride, spreading the shade of its chivalry. Alas for it!... It is heedless in its contentment, unmindful of the treachery hatched against it and the deliberate deceit... The land is no longer our land, my ewe. We have become strangers in it, owning no more of it than the dreamer owns of his dream, or the stranger of the land of his exile. They have sold it... and no hope remains to look for. They sell, my ewe, and live in comfort... while we here are humbled and hounded... Theirs the ease and the journey of summer and of winter; ours the misery, the abasement, and the wretchedness. Theirs the seats of honor and the gain; ours the anguish and the heartbreak. Tomorrow this gathered company