telling him with well-acted indignation that if not found
it must be paid for. I went so far as to give a list of the articles I
should require, including a bow and arrows, zabatana, two spears, and
other things which I need not specify, to set me up for life as a wild
man in the woods of Guayana. I was going to add a wife, but as I had
already been offered one it did not appear to be necessary. He seemed a
little taken aback at the value I set upon my weapon, and promised to go
and look for it again. Then I begged that Kua-ko, in whose sharpness of
sight I had great faith, might accompany us. He consented, and named
the next day but one for the expedition. Very well, thought I, tomorrow
their suspicion will be less, and my opportunity will come; then taking
up my rude instrument, I gave them an old Spanish song:

Desde aquel doloroso momento;

but this kind of music had lost its charm for them, and I was asked to
give them the ballad they understood so well, in which their interest
seemed to increase with every repetition. In spite of anxiety it amused
me to see old Cla-cla regarding me fixedly with owlish eyes and lips
moving. My tale had no wonderful things in it, like hers of the olden
time, which she told only to send her hearers to sleep. Perhaps she had
discovered by now that it was the strange honey of melody which made the
coarse, common cassava bread of everyday life in my story so pleasant to
the palate. I was quite prepared to receive a proposal to give her music
and singing lessons, and to bequeath a guitar to her in my last will and
testament. For, in spite of her hoary hair and million wrinkles, she,
more than any other savage I had met with, seemed to have taken a
draught from Ponce de Leon's undiscovered fountain of eternal youth.
Poor old witch!

The following day was the sixth of my absence from Rima, and one of
intense anxiety to me, a feeling which I endeavoured to hide by playing
with the children, fighting our old comic stick fights, and by strumming
noisily on the guitar. In the afternoon, when it was hottest, and all
the men who happened to be indoors were lying in their hammocks, I asked
Kua-ko to go with me to the stream to bathe. He refused--I had counted
on that--and earnestly advised me not to bathe in the pool I was
accustomed to, as some little caribe fishes had made their appearance
there and would be sure to attack me. I laughed at his idle tale and,
taking up my cloak, swung out