Then with her companion, Shadow-of-a-lance went back to the House of the Virgins. When they went within the doorway they were examined as was the custom; their clothes and all they carried were looked over, so that nothing that was unfitting might be brought into the House of the Virgins of the Sun.
In the place where Shadow-of-a-lance slept there were four fountains. Now she lay upon her bed and she thought upon the llama-herder, and she thought upon the silver plate that he had owned and that she now had upon her own forehead, and she thought that what it showed was her own condition, for her heart, too, was being eaten by two figures. She slept, and in her sleep she saw a bird flying between two trees and crying mournfully. In her dream she spoke to the bird--a checollo it was--and she told it that she, too, mourned for that for which there was no remedy--for a love that she, a Virgin of the Sun, had for a young man who herded llamas.
Then the bird told her that she was to arise and seat herself between the fountains, and there sing to herself what was most in her thought. If the fountains sang back the words that she sang to them, a remedy would come to her. Shadow-of-a-lance rose from her bed and sat between the fountains, and sang of the heart that was being eaten by two beings. The fountains sang her words back to her, but
