The pain in his neck (he must have caught it from the lama) had gone with the heavy dengue-aches and the evil taste in the mouth.

The two old women, a little, but not much, more careful about their veils now, clucked as merrily as the hens that had entered pecking through the open door.
'Where is my Holy One ?' he demanded.
'Hear him! Thy Holy One is well,' she snapped viciously.

'Though that is none of his merit.

Knew I a charm to make him wise, I'd sell my jewels and buy it.

To refuse good food that I cooked myself--and go roving into the fields for two nights on an empty belly--and to tumble into a brook at the end of it--call you that holiness?
Then, when he has nearly broken what thou hast left of my heart with anxiety, he tells me that he has acquired merit.