hile he, casting himself
prostrate on the ground, implored her forgiveness and begged to know
her will. But she made no reply; and at length, finding that she was
powerless to move, he concluded that, though a saint and one of the
beings that men worship, she was also flesh and liable to accidents
while sojourning on earth; and perhaps, he thought, that accident which
had befallen her had been specially designed by the powers above to
prove him. With great labour, and not without causing her much pain, he
succeeded in extricating her from her position; and then finding that
the injured foot was half crushed and blue and swollen, he took her
up in his arms and carried her to the stream. There, making a cup of a
broad green leaf, he offered her water, which she drank eagerly; and
he also laved her injured foot in the cold stream and bandaged it with
fresh aquatic leaves; finally he made her a soft bed of moss and dry
grass and placed her on it. That night he spent keeping watch over
her, at intervals applying fresh wet leaves to her foot as the old ones
became dry and wilted from the heat of the inflammation.

The effect of all he did was that the terror with which she regarded him
gradually wore off; and next day, when she seemed to be recovering her
strength, he proposed by signs to remove her to the cave higher up,
where she would be sheltered in case of rain. She appeared to understand
him, and allowed herself to be taken up in his arms and carried with
much labour to the top of the chasm. In the cave he made her a second
couch, and tended her assiduously. He made a fire on the floor and kept
it burning night and day, and supplied her with water to drink and fresh
leaves for her foot. There was little more that he could do. From the
choicest and fattest bits of toasted tapir flesh he offered her she
turned away with disgust. A little cassava bread soaked in water she
would take, but seemed not to like it. After a time, fearing that she
would starve, he took to hunting after wild fruits, edible bulbs and
gums, and on these small things she subsisted during the whole time of
their sojourn together in the desert.

The woman, although lamed for life, was now so far recovered as to be
able to limp about without assistance, and she spent a portion of each
day out among the rocks and trees on the mountains. Nuflo at first
feared that she would now leave him, but before long he became convinced
that she had no such intention