"Rima--sweet Rima, will you listen to me?""Now? Oh, no--why do you ask that? Did I not listen to you in the wood before we started, and you also promised to do what Iwished? See, the rain is over and the moon shines brightly. Why should I wait? Perhaps from the summit I shall see my people's country. Are we not near it now?""Oh, Rima, what do you expect to see? Listen--you must listen, for I know best. From that summit you would see nothing but a vast dim desert, mountain and forest, mountain and forest, where you might wander for years, or until you perished of hunger or fever, or were slain by some beast of prey or by savage men; but oh, Rima, never, never, never would you find your people, for they exist not. You have seen the false water of the mirage on the savannah, when the sun shines bright and hot; and if one were to follow it one would at last fall down and perish, with never a cool drop to moisten one's parched lips. And your hope, Rima--this hope to find your people which has brought you all the way to Riolama--is a mirage, a delusion, which will lead to destruction if you will not abandon it."She turned to face me with flashing eyes. "You know best!" she exclaimed. "You know best and tell me that! Never until this moment have you spoken falsely. Oh, why have you said such things to me--named after this place, Riolama? Am I also like that false water you speak of--no divine Rima, no sweet Rima? My mother, had she no mother, no mother's mother? I remember her, at Voa, before she died, and this hand seems real--like yours;you have asked to hold it. But it is not he that speaks to me--not one that showed me the whole world on Ytaioa. Ah, you have wrapped yourself in a stolen cloak, only you have left your old grey beard behind! Go back to the cave and look for it, and leave me to seek my people alone!"Once more, as on that day in the forest when she prevented me from killing the serpent, and as on the occasion of her meeting with Nuflo after we had been together on Ytaioa, she appeared transformed and instinct with intense resentment--a beautiful human wasp, and every word a sting.
"Rima," I cried, "you are cruelly unjust to say such words to me.
If you know that I have never deceived you before, give me a little credit now. You are no delusion--no mirage, but Rima, like no other being on earth. So perfectly truthful and pure Icannot be, but rather than mislead you with falsehoods I would drop down and die on this rock, and lose you and the sweet light that shines on us for ever."As she listened to my words, spoken with passion, she grew pale and clasped her hands. "What have I said? What have I said?"She spoke in a low voice charged with pain, and all at once she came nearer, and with a low, sobbing cry sank down at my feet, uttering, as on the occasion of finding me lost at night in the forest near her home, tender, sorrowful expressions in her own mysterious language. But before I could take her in my arms she rose again quickly to her feet and moved away a little space from me.
"Oh no, no, it cannot be that you know best!" she began again.
