had a straight eye, would make the tube. I
treated it all as a joke, but he solemnly assured me that he meant it.

Next morning he asked me if I was going to the forest of evil fame, and
when I replied in the negative, seemed surprised and, very much to my
surprise, evidently disappointed. He even tried to persuade me to go,
where before I had been earnestly recommended not to go, until, finding
that I would not, he took me with him to hunt in the woods. By and by he
returned to the same subject: he could not understand why I would not go
to that wood, and asked me if I had begun to grow afraid.

"No, not afraid," I replied; "but I know the place well, and am getting
tired of it." I had seen everything in it--birds and beasts--and had
heard all its strange noises.

"Yes, heard," he said, nodding his head knowingly; "but you have seen
nothing strange; your eyes are not good enough yet."

I laughed contemptuously and answered that I had seen everything strange
the wood contained, including a strange young girl; and I went on to
describe her appearance, and finished by asking if he thought a white
man was frightened at the sight of a young girl.

What I said astonished him; then he seemed greatly pleased, and, growing
still more confidential and generous than on the previous day, he said
that I would soon be a most important personage among them, and greatly
distinguish myself. He did not like it when I laughed at all this, and
went on with great seriousness to speak of the unmade blowpipe that
would be mine--speaking of it as if it had been something very great,
equal to the gift of a large tract of land, or the governorship of a
province, north of the Orinoco. And by and by he spoke of something else
more wonderful even than the promise of a blow-pipe, with arrows galore,
and this was that young sister of his, whose name was Oalava, a maid of
about sixteen, shy and silent and mild-eyed, rather lean and dirty; not
ugly, nor yet prepossessing. And this copper-coloured little drab of the
wilderness he proposed to bestow in marriage on me! Anxious to pump him,
I managed to control my muscles and asked him what authority he--a
young nobody, who had not yet risen to the dignity of buying a wife
for himself--could have to dispose of a sister in this offhand way?
He replied that there would be no difficulty: that Runi would give his
consent, as would also Otawinki, Piake, and other relations; and last,
and LEAST, according t