Also the report of them put fear into Hafela, who, it was rumoured, had now given up all idea of attack.
Some there were, however, who looked upon these changes with little love, and Hokosa was one of them.

After his defeat in the duel by fire, for a while his spirit was crushed.

Hitherto he had more or less been a believer in the protecting influence of his own god or fetish, who would, as he thought, hold his priests scatheless from the lightning.
Often and often had he stood in past days upon that plain while the great tempests broke around his head, and returned thence unharmed, attributing to sorcery a safety that was really due to chance.

From time to time indeed a priest was killed; but, so his companions held, the misfortune resulted invariably from the man's neglect of some rite, or was a mark of the anger of the heavens.
Now Hokosa had lived to see all these convictions shattered: he had seen the lightning, which he pretended to be able to control, roll back upon him from the foot of the Christian cross, reducing his god to nothingness and his companions to corpses.
At first Hokosa was dismayed, but as time went on hope came back to him.
Stripped of his offices and power, and from the greatest in the nation, after the king, become one of small account, still no harm or violence was attempted towards him.

He was left wealthy and in peace, and living thus he watched and listened with open eyes and ears, waiting till the tide should turn.