and Amazon. It has vast
malarious swamps on its borders, overgrown with dense forest, teeming
with savage and venomous animals, so that even the Indians dare not
venture near it. And even before the river is reached, there is a range
of precipitous mountains called by the same name--just there where your
pebble fell--the mountains of Riolama--"

Hardly had the name fallen from my lips before a change swift as
lightning came over her countenance; all doubt, anxiety, petulance,
hope, and despondence, and these in ever-varying degrees, chasing each
other like shadows, had vanished, and she was instinct and burning with
some new powerful emotion which had flashed into her soul.

"Riolama! Riolama!" she repeated so rapidly and in a tone so sharp that
it tingled in the brain. "That is the place I am seeking! There was
my mother found--there are her people and mine! Therefore was I called
Riolama--that is my name!"

"Rima!" I returned, astonished at her words.

"No, no, no--Riolama. When I was a child, and the priest baptized me, he
named me Riolama--the place where my mother was found. But it was long
to say, and they called me Rima."

Suddenly she became still and then cried in a ringing voice:

"And he knew it all along--that old man--he knew that Riolama was
near--only there where the pebble fell--that we could go there!"

While speaking she turned towards her home, pointing with raised hand.
Her whole appearance now reminded me of that first meeting with her
when the serpent bit me; the soft red of her irides shone like fire, her
delicate skin seemed to glow with an intense rose colour, and her frame
trembled with her agitation, so that her loose cloud of hair was in
motion as if blown through by the wind.

"Traitor! Traitor!" she cried, still looking homewards and using quick,
passionate gestures. "It was all known to you, and you deceived me all
these years; even to me, Rima, you lied with your lips! Oh, horrible!
Was there ever such a scandal known in Guayana? Come, follow me, let us
go at once to Riolama." And without so much as casting a glance behind
to see whether I followed or no, she hurried away, and in a couple of
minutes disappeared from sight over the edge of the flat summit. "Rima!
Rima! Come back and listen to me! Oh, you are mad! Come back! Come
back!"

But she would not return or pause and listen; and looking after her,
I saw her bounding down the rocky slope like some wild, agile creature
poss