Page:Fairytales•Tregear•1891.pdf/142

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136
THE ENCHANTED WATER.

formed without regard either to the feelings of others or the consequences to himself.

This chief had a handsome slave-girl whose name was Pata, a girl of good family and breeding although misfortune had thrown her into a state of servitude. One day Kotu ordered the maiden to take the water calabashes and to fill them at the neighbouring spring. “If you are too long away,” he said “I shall have to come and hurry you homeward.” He said this with so harsh and cruel a glance that the girl knew she would have a severe punishment if she loitered on the way. Taking up the calabashes she passed down the winding path to the place where usually the waters of a small spring were to be seen bubbling up among the cool green leaves of plants and ferns whose roots were kept moist and fresh through all the year, however fiercely the tropical sun might be blazing on the open country. Now, to Pata’s dismay, she found that the spring had ceased to flow, and not a drop of water was to be obtained. Catching up her calabashes she ran with flying steps up the pathway over the ridge towards the next valley, where she knew that a larger spring poured its waters over a ledge of rocks. Alas, the limpid stream no longer ran over the stony ledges, dry and arid lay the little watercourse under the