Henry had gathered Leoncia to him and was about to leap, when she stopped him.
“Why did you accept Francis’ sacrifice?” she demanded.
“Because ...” He paused and looked at her wonderingly.
“Because I wanted you,” he completed. “Because I was engaged to you as well, while Francis was unattached. Besides, if I’m not greatly mistaken, Francis appears to be a pretty well satisfied bridegroom.”
“No,” she shook her head emphatically. “He has a chivalrous spirit, and he is acting his part in order not to hurt her feelings.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Remember, before the altar, at the Long House, when I said I was going to ask the Queen to marry me, that he bragged she wouldn’t marry me if I did ask? Well, the conclusion’s pretty obvious that he wanted her himself. And why shouldn’t he? He’s a bachelor. And she’s some nice woman herself.”
But Leoncia scarcely heard. With a quick movement, leaning back in his arms away from him so that she could look him squarely in the eyes, she demanded:
“How do you love me? Do you love me madly? Do you love me badly madly? Do I mean that to you, and more, and more, and more?”
He could only look his bewilderment.
“Do you?—do you?” she urged passionately.
“Of course I do,” he made slow answer, “but it would never have entered my head to describe it that way. Why, you’re the one woman for me. Rather would I describe it as loving you deeply, and greatly, and enduringly. Why, you seem so much a part of me that I feel almost as if I had always known you. It was that way from the first.”
“She is an abominable woman!” Leoncia broke forth irrelevantly. “I hated her from the first.”
“My! What a spitfire! I hate to think how much you would have hated her had I married her instead of Francis.”
“We’d better follow them,” she put an end to the discussion.
And Henry, very much be-puzzled, clasped her tightly and leaped off into the white turmoil of water.
On the bank of the Gualaca River sat two Indian girls fishing. Just up-stream from them arose the precipitous cliff of one of the buttresses of the lofty mountains. The main stream flowed past in chocolate-colored spate; but, directly beneath them, where they fished, was a quiet eddy. No less quiet was the fishing. No bites jerked their rods in token that the bait was enticing. One of them, Nicoya, yawned, ate a banana, yawned again, and held the skin she was about to cast aside suspended in her hand.
“We have been very quiet, Concordia,” she observed to her companion, “and it has won us no fish. Now shall I make a noise and a splash. Since they say ‘what goes up must come down,’ why should not something come up after something has gone down? I am going to try. There!”
She threw the banana peel into the water and lazily watched the point where it had struck.
“If anything comes up I hope it will be big,” Concordia murmured with equal laziness.
And upon their astonished gaze, even as they looked, arose up out of the brown depths a great white hound. They jerked their poles up and behind them on the bank, threw their arms about each other, and watched the hound gain the shore at the lower end of the eddy, climb the sloping bank, pause to shake himself, and then disappear among the trees.
Nicoya and Concordia giggled.
“Try it again,” Concordia urged.
“No; you this time. And see what you can bring up.”
Quite unbelieving, Concordia tossed in a clod of earth. And almost immediately a helmeted head arose on the flood. Clutching each other very tightly, they watched the man under the helmet gain the shore where the hound had landed and disappear into the forest.
Again the two Indian girls giggled; but this time, urge as they would, neither could raise the courage to throw anything into the water.
Some time later, still giggling over the strange occurrences, they were espied by two young Indian men, who were hugging the bank as they paddled their canoe up against the stream.
“What makes you laugh,” one of them greeted.
“We have been seeing things,” Nicoya gurgled down to them.
“Then have you been drinking pulque,” the young man charged.
Both girls shook their heads, and Concordia said:
“We don’t have to drink to see things. First, when Nicoya threw in a banana skin, we saw a dog come up out of the water——a white dog that was as big as a tiger of the mountains——”
“And when Concordia threw in a clod,” the other girl took up the tale, “up came a man with a head of iron. It is magic. Concordia and I can work magic.”
“José,” one of the Indians addressed his mate, “this merits a drink.”
And each, in turn, while the other with his paddle held the canoe in place, took a swig from a square-face Holland gin bottle part full of pulque.
“No,” said José, when the girls had begged him for a drink. “One drink of pulque and you might see more white dogs as big as tigers or more iron-headed men.”
“All right,” Nicoya accepted the rebuff. “Then do you throw in your pulque bottle and see what you will see. We drew a dog and a man. Your prize may be the devil.”
“I should like to see the devil,” said José, taking another drain at the bottle. “The pulque is a true fire of bravery. I should very much like to see the devil.”
He passed the bottle to his companion with a gesture to finish it.
“Now throw it into the water,” José commanded.
The empty bottle struck with a forceful splash, and the evoking was realized with startling immediacy, for up to the surface floated the monstrous, hairy body of the slain spider. Which was too much for ordinary Indian flesh and blood. So suddenly did both young men recoil from the sight that they capsized the canoe. When their heads emerged from the water they struck out for the swift current, and were swiftly borne away down stream, followed more slowly by the swamped canoe.
