od comrade. The Lord have mercy on me!"

All were silent as the grave whenever Yeo made any allusion to that lost
child. Ayacanora only, pleased with Amyas's commendation, went humming
on to herself--

"And heave, my mariners all, O!"

Yeo started up from the gun where he sat.

"I can't abear it! As I live, I can't! You, Indian maiden, where did you
learn to sing that there?"

Ayacanora looked up at him, half frightened by his vehemence, then at
Amyas, to see if she had been doing anything wrong; and then turned
saucily away, looked over the side, and hummed on.

"Ask her, for mercy's sake--ask her, Captain Leigh!"

"My child," said Amyas, speaking in Indian, "how is it you sing that so
much better than any other English? Did you ever hear it before?"

Ayacanora looked up at him puzzled, and shook her head; and then--

"If you tell Indian to Ayacanora, she dumb. She must be English girl
now, like poor Lucy."

"Well then," said Amyas, "do you recollect, Ayacanora--do you
recollect--what shall I say? anything that happened when you were a
little girl?"

She paused awhile; and then moving her hands overhead--

"Trees--great trees like the Magdalena--always nothing but trees--wild
and bad everything. Ayacanora won't talk about that."

"Do you mind anything that grew on those trees?" asked Yeo, eagerly.

She laughed. "Silly! Flowers and fruit, and nuts--grow on all trees, and
monkey-cups too. Ayacanora climbed up after them--when she was wild. I
won't tell any more."

"But who taught you to call them monkey-cups?" asked Yeo, trembling with
excitement.

"Monkey's drink; mono drink."

"Mono?" said Yeo, foiled on one cast, and now trying another. "How did
you know the beasts were called monos?"

"She might have heard it coming down with us," said Cary, who had joined
the group.

"Ay, monos," said she, in a self-justifying tone. "Faces like little
men, and tails. And one very dirty black one, with a beard, say Amen in
a tree to all the other monkeys, just like Sir John on Sunday."

This allusion to Brimblecombe and the preaching apes upset all but old
Yeo.

"But don't you recollect any Christians?--white people?"

She was silent.

"Don't you mind a white lady?"

"Um?"

"A woman, a very pretty woman, with hair like his?" pointing to Amyas.

"No."

"What do you mind, then, beside those Indians?" added Yeo, in despair.

She turned her back on him peevishly, as if tired with the efforts of