These travellers
related that two days' journey from Ytaioa they had met three
persons travelling in an opposite direction: an old man with a
white beard, followed by two yellow dogs, a young man in a big
cloak, and a strange-looking girl. Thus it came to be known that
I had left the wood with the old man and the daughter of the
Didi. It was great news to them, for they did not believe that
we had any intention of returning, and at once they began to hunt
in the wood, and went there every day, killing birds, monkeys,
and other animals in numbers.
His words had begun to excite me greatly, but I studied to appear
calm and only slightly interested, so as to draw him on to say
more.
"Then we returned," I said at last. "But only two of us, and not
together. I left the old man on the road, and SHE left us in
Riolama. She went away from us into the mountains--who knows
whither!"
"But she came back!" he returned, with a gleam of devilish
satisfaction in his eyes that made the blood run cold in my
veins.
It was hard to dissemble still, to tempt him to say something
that would madden me! "No, no," I answered, after considering
his words.
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