ed, and was marvelling how
anyone could choose to live in so outlandish and lonely a spot, when a
shrill scream, followed by a series of violent guttural ejaculations,
came from the interior of the building, and the next moment a little
boy--some seven or eight years of age--rushed out of the house, pursued
by a prodigiously fat woman, who whacked him soundly across the
shoulders with a knotted club and then halted for want of breath. Van
Hielen, who was well versed in the native language, politely asked her
what the boy had done to deserve so severe a chastisement.

"Done!" the woman replied, opening her beady little eyes to their full
extent; "why, he's not done anything--that's why I beat him--he's
incorrigibly idle. He and his sister spend all their time amid the trees
yonder conversing with the bad spirits. They learned that trick from
Guska, with the evil eye. She has bewitched them. She was shot to death
with arrows in the market-place last year, and my only regret is that
she wasn't put out of the way ten years sooner. Ah! there's that wicked
girl Yarakna--she's been hiding from me all the day. I must punish her,
too!" and before Van Hielen could speak the indignant parent waddled
off--with surprising swiftness for one of her vast proportions--and
reappeared dragging by the wrist an elfish-looking girl of about ten.
She gave the urchin one blow, and was about to give her another, when
Van Hielen, whose heart was particularly tender where children were
concerned, interfered, and by dint of bribery persuaded her to desist.
She retired indoors, and Van Hielen found himself alone with the child.

"May the spirit of the woods for ever be your friend!" the maiden said.
"But for you my poor back would have been beaten to a tonka bean. My
brother and I have suffered enough at the hands of the old woman--we'll
suffer no more."

"What will you do then?" Van Hielen asked, shocked at the revengeful
expression that marred the otherwise pretty features of the child.
"Remember, she is your mother, and has every right to expect you to be
obedient and industrious."

"She is not our mother!" the girl answered. "Our mother is the spirit of
the woods. We work for her--not for this old woman, and in return she
tells us tales and amuses us."

"You work for her!" Van Hielen said in amazement. "What do you mean?"

The child smiled--the ignorance of the white man tickled her. "We gather
aloes for medicine for her sick children; th