no harm. We are going over the mountains to fight the Spaniards and we want them to show us the way."
The boy had no sooner spoken, than, nimble as a deer, the nymph had sprung up the rocks, and darted between the palmstems to her canoe. Suddenly she caught sight of the English boat, and stopped with a cry of fear and rage.
"Let her pass!" shouted Amyas, who had followed her close. "Push your boat off, and let her pass. Boy, tell her to go on: they will not come near her."
But she hesitated still, and with arrow drawn to the head, faced first on the boat's crew, and then on Amyas, till the Englishmen had shoved off full twenty yards.
Then, leaping into her tiny piragua, she darted into the wildest whirl of the eddies, shooting along with vigorous strokes, while the English trembled as they saw the frail bark spinning and leaping amid the muzzles of the alligators, and the huge dog-toothed trout: but with the swiftness of an arrow she reached the northern bank, drove her canoe among the bushes, and leaping from it, darted through some narrow opening in the bush, and vanished like a dream.
"What fair virago have you unearthed?" cried Cary, as they toiled up again to the landing-place.
"Beshrew me," quoth Jack, "but we are in the very land of the nymphs, and I shall expect to see Diana herself next, with the moon on her forehead."
"Take care, then, where you wander hereabouts. Sir John: lest you end as Actæon did, by turning into a stag, and being eaten by a jaguar."
"Actæon was eaten by his own hounds, Mr. Cary, so the parallel don't hold. But surely she was a very wonder of beauty!"
Why was it that Amyas did not like this harmless talk? There had come over him the strangest new feeling; as if that fair vision was his property, and the men had no right to talk about her, no right to have even seen her. And he spoke quite surlily as he said—
"You may leave the women to themselves, my masters: you'll have to deal with the men ere long: so get your canoes up on the rock, and keep good watch."
"Hillo!" shouted one in a few minutes, "here's fresh fish enough to feed us all round. I suppose that young cat-a-mountain left it behind her in her hurry. I wish she had left her golden chains and ouches into the bargain,"
"Well," said another, "we'll take it as fair payment, for having made us drop down the current again to let her ladyship pass."
"Leave that fish alone," said Amyas; "it's none of yours."
"Why, sir!" quoth the finder in a tone of sulky deprecation.
"If we are to make good friends with the heathens, we had better not begin by stealing their goods. There are plenty more fish in the river; go and catch them, and let the Indians have their own."
