the desert beneath us--mountain
and forest, mountain and forest. Somewhere there! You said that I had
knowledge of distant things. And shall I not know which mountain--which
forest?"

"Alas! no, Rima; there is a limit to your far-seeing; and even if that
faculty were as great as you imagine, it would avail you nothing, for
there is no mountain, no forest, in whose shadow your people dwell."

For a while she was silent, but her eyes and clasping fingers were
restless and showed her agitation. She seemed to be searching in the
depths of her mind for some argument to oppose to my assertions. Then
in a low, almost despondent voice, with something of reproach in it, she
said: "Have we come so far to go back again? You were not Nuflo to need
my intercession, yet you came too."

"Where you are, there I must be--you have said it yourself. Besides,
when we started I had some hope of finding your people. Now I know
better, having heard Nuflo's story. Now I know that your hope is a vain
one."

"Why? Why? Was she not found here--mother? Where, then, are the others?"

"Yes, she was found here, alone. You must remember all the things
she spoke to you before she died. Did she ever speak to you of her
people--speak of them as if they existed, and would be glad to receive
you among them some day?"

"No. Why did she not speak of that? Do you know--can you tell me?"

"I can guess the reason, Rima. It is very sad--so sad that it is hard to
tell it. When Nuflo tended her in the cave and was ready to worship
her and do everything she wished, and conversed with her by signs, she
showed no wish to return to her people. And when he offered her, in a
way she understood, to take her to a distant place, where she would be
among strange beings, among others like Nuflo, she readily consented,
and painfully performed that long journey to Voa. Would you, Rima, have
acted thus--would you have gone so far away from your beloved people,
never to return, never to hear of them or speak to them again? Oh no,
you could not; nor would she if her people had been in existence. But
she knew that she had survived them, that some great calamity had
fallen upon and destroyed them. They were few in number, perhaps, and
surrounded on every side by hostile tribes, and had no weapons, and made
no war. They had been preserved because they inhabited a place apart,
some deep valley perhaps, guarded on all sides by lofty mountains and
impenetrable forests and mars