swooned
several times, vomiting painfully, upset the entire cabin and caused her
mother to burst into desperate lamentations and to run in terror for
help. Many of her neighbors smiled when they heard of this illness. Let
them tell it to _Carafosca_!... But the incredulous ones ceased their
malicious talk and their suspicions when they saw how sad and desperate
_Carafosca_ became at his sweetheart's illness, praying for her recovery
with all the fervor of a simple soul, even going so far as to enter the
little village church,--he, who had always been a pagan, a blasphemer of
God and the saints.

"Yes, it was a strange and horrible sickness. The people, in their
predisposition to believe in all sorts of extraordinary and rare
afflictions, were certain that they knew what this was. Visanteta had a
toad in her stomach. She had drunk from a certain spot of the near-by
river, and the wicked animal, small and almost unnoticeable, had gone
down into her stomach, growing fast. The good neighbors, trembling with
stupefaction, flocked to _la Soberana's_ cabin to examine the girl. All,
with a certain solemnity, felt the swelling abdomen, seeking in its
tightened surface the outlines of the hidden creature. Some of them,
older and more experienced than the rest, laughed with a triumphant
expression. There it was, right under their hand. They could feel it
stirring, moving about.... Yes, it was moving! And after grave
deliberation, they agreed upon remedies to expel the unwelcome guest.
They gave the girl spoonfuls of rosemary honey, so that the wicked
creature inside should start to eat it gluttonously, and when he was
most preoccupied in his joyous meal, whiz!--an inundation of onion juice
and vinegar that would bring him out at full gallop. At the same time
they applied to her stomach miraculous plasters, so that the toad, left
without a moment's rest, should escape in terror; there were rags soaked
in brandy and saturated with incense; tangles of hemp dipped in the
calking of the ships; mountain herbs; simple bits of paper with numbers,
crosses and Solomon's seal upon them, sold by the miracle-worker of the
city. Visanteta thought that all these remedies that were being thrust
down her throat would be the death of her. She shuddered with the chills
of nausea, she writhed in horrible contortions as if she were about to
expel her very entrails, but the odious toad did not deign to show even
one of his legs, and _la Soberana_ crie