ll you listen to me?"

"Now? Oh, no--why do you ask that? Did I not listen to you in the wood
before we started, and you also promised to do what I wished? See, the
rain is over and the moon shines brightly. Why should I wait? Perhaps
from the summit I shall see my people's country. Are we not near it
now?"

"Oh, Rima, what do you expect to see? Listen--you must listen, for I
know best. From that summit you would see nothing but a vast dim desert,
mountain and forest, mountain and forest, where you might wander for
years, or until you perished of hunger or fever, or were slain by some
beast of prey or by savage men; but oh, Rima, never, never, never would
you find your people, for they exist not. You have seen the false water
of the mirage on the savannah, when the sun shines bright and hot; and
if one were to follow it one would at last fall down and perish,
with never a cool drop to moisten one's parched lips. And your hope,
Rima--this hope to find your people which has brought you all the way to
Riolama--is a mirage, a delusion, which will lead to destruction if you
will not abandon it."

She turned to face me with flashing eyes. "You know best!" she
exclaimed. "You know best and tell me that! Never until this moment have
you spoken falsely. Oh, why have you said such things to me--named after
this place, Riolama? Am I also like that false water you speak of--no
divine Rima, no sweet Rima? My mother, had she no mother, no mother's
mother? I remember her, at Voa, before she died, and this hand seems
real--like yours; you have asked to hold it. But it is not he that
speaks to me--not one that showed me the whole world on Ytaioa. Ah, you
have wrapped yourself in a stolen cloak, only you have left your old
grey beard behind! Go back to the cave and look for it, and leave me to
seek my people alone!"

Once more, as on that day in the forest when she prevented me from
killing the serpent, and as on the occasion of her meeting with Nuflo
after we had been together on Ytaioa, she appeared transformed and
instinct with intense resentment--a beautiful human wasp, and every word
a sting.

"Rima," I cried, "you are cruelly unjust to say such words to me. If you
know that I have never deceived you before, give me a little credit now.
You are no delusion--no mirage, but Rima, like no other being on earth.
So perfectly truthful and pure I cannot be, but rather than mislead you
with falsehoods I would drop down and die on this