That code taught the necessity of self-aggrandisement, or at least and at all costs the necessity of self-preservation.

This white preacher stood in his path; he had humiliated him, Hokosa, and in the end, either of himself or through his influences, it was probable that he would destroy him.
Therefore he must strike before in his own person he received a mortal blow, and having no other means at his command, he struck through treachery and poison.
That was his law which for many generations had been followed and respected by his class with the tacit assent of the nation.

According to this law, then, he had done no wrong.

But now the victim by the altar, who did not know that already he was bound upon the altar, preached a new and a very different doctrine under which, were it to be believed, he, Hokosa, was one of the worst of sinners.

The matter, then, resolved itself to this: which of these two rules of life was the right rule?
Which of them should a man follow to satisfy his conscience and to secure his abiding welfare?
Apart from the motives that swayed him, as a mere matter of ethics, this problem interested Hokosa not a little, and he went homewards determined to solve it if he might.