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Updated: June 21, 2025
But what to do with Ayacanora weighed heavily on the mind of Amyas. He opened his heart on the matter to the old hermit, and asked him whether he would take charge of her. The latter smiled, and shook his head at the notion. "If your report of her be true, I may as well take in hand to tame a jaguar."
There they stood, the deadly tubes pressed to their lips, eyeing him like tigresses who protect their young, while every slender limb quivered, not with terror, but with rage. Amyas paused, half in admiration, half in prudence; for one rash step was death. But rushing through the canes, Ayacanora sprang to the front, and shrieked to them in Indian.
It was answered by one from Mrs. Leigh. "We are a melancholy pair, sweet chuck," said the fair widow. "What is my maid sighing about, there?" "Because I cannot make out the long words," said Ayacanora, telling a very white fib. "Is that all? Come to me, and I will tell you." Ayacanora moved over to her, and sat down at her feet. "H e, he, r o, ro, i c a l, heroical," said Mrs. Leigh.
Come home, and let me know whether I am sane or mazed, alive or dead." And drawing her hood over her face, she turned to go back, holding Amyas tight by one hand, and Ayacanora by the other. The crowd let them depart some twenty yards in respectful silence, and then burst into a cheer which made the old town ring. Mrs. Leigh stopped suddenly. "I had forgotten, Amyas.
Ayacanora slipped back like a scolded child, and vanished in the darkness. The battle was over. The Spaniards, seeing their commanders fall, laid down their arms, and cried for quarter. It was given; the poor fellows were tied together, two and two, and seated in a row on the deck; the commandant, sorely bruised, yielded himself perforce; and the galleon was taken.
And it befell also that Ayacanora, as she stood by Amyas's side, watching the men, and trying to make out their chat, heard it, and started; and then, half to herself, took up the strain, and sang it over again, word for word, in the very same tune and tone. Salvation Yeo started in his turn, and turned deadly pale. "Who sung that?" he asked quickly. "The little maid here.
Man and beast went down together, and where they sank, the moonlight shone on a great swirling eddy, while all held their breaths, and Ayacanora cowered down into the bottom of the canoe, her proud spirit utterly broken, for the first time, by the terror of that great need, and by a bitter loss.
And, true enough, there was the huge brute swimming slowly round and round, in search of his lost victim. It was too dark to put an arrow into his eye; so they paddled on, while Ayacanora crouched silently at Amyas's feet. "Yeo!" asked he, in a low voice, "what shall we do with her?" "Why ask me, sir?" said the old man, as he had a very good right to ask.
Leigh knew enough of Amyas to know that any burst of this kind, from his quiet nature, betokened some very fearful struggle; and the loving creature forgot everything instantly, in the one desire to soothe him. And soothe him she did; and home the two went, arm in arm together, while Ayacanora held fast, like a child, by the skirt of Mrs. Leigh's cloak.
But Ayacanora did not return; and ten days more went on in continual toil at the canoes without any news of her from the hunters. Amyas, by the by, had strictly bidden these last not to follow the girl, not even to speak to her, if they came across her in their wanderings.
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