drunk, who cheated at cards, and was sometimes suspected of putting
poison on his fighting-cock's spur to make sure of the victory!
Doubtless the priest had his faults; but he was not without humanity,
and for the whole seven years of that unhappy stranger's sojourn at Voa
he did everything in his power to make her existence tolerable. Some
weeks after arriving she gave birth to a female child, and then the
priest insisted on naming it Riolama, in order, he said, to keep in
remembrance the strange story of the mother's discovery at that place.

Rima's mother could not be taught to speak either Spanish or Indian; and
when she found that the mysterious and melodious sounds that fell from
her own lips were understood by none, she ceased to utter them, and
thereafter preserved an unbroken silence among the people she lived
with. But from the presence of others she shrank, as if in disgust or
fear, excepting only Nuflo and the priest, whose kindly intentions she
appeared to understand and appreciate. So far her life in the village
was silent and sorrowful. With her child it was different; and every day
that was not wet, taking the little thing by the hand, she would limp
painfully out into the forest, and there, sitting on the ground, the two
would commune with each other by the hour in their wonderful language.

At length she began to grow perceptibly paler and feebler week by week,
day by day, until she could no longer go out into the wood, but sat or
reclined, panting for breath in the dull hot room, waiting for death
to release her. At the same time little Rima, who had always appeared
frail, as if from sympathy, now began to fade and look more shadowy,
so that it was expected she would not long survive her parent. To the
mother death came slowly, but at last it seemed so near that Nuflo and
the priest were together at her side waiting to see the end. It was then
that little Rima, who had learnt from infancy to speak in Spanish, rose
from the couch where her mother had been whispering to her, and began
with some difficulty to express what was in the dying woman's mind. Her
child, she had said, could not continue to live in that hot wet place,
but if taken away to a distance where there were mountains and a cooler
air she would survive and grow strong again.

Hearing this, old Nuflo declared that the child should not perish; that
he himself would take her away to Parahuari, a distant place where there
were mountains an