When she awoke they mounted Cato’s horse and rode to her home. Coming upon a path leading to her village, Cato saw savages digging into the soil with bare fingers. They were scourging the earth for flecks of gold, but the rider knew it as pyrite. When one digger would find his treasure in the earth, the others would beat him and take his findings. Others would strangle and stab with hidden blades. Other groups lay prostrate across the path, eating a blackish purple leaf which sent them into a euphoria to tear and scratch at their eyes. Heaps of spasmodic flesh. Cato felt the hands wrapped about his stomach tighten and a quaking.

The village came into sight and Cato dismounted, calling for the chief.