Presently they came among the trees where the ripe fruit hung, and as Waldo climbed nimbly among the branches and tossed the most luscious down to her, the girl, in her turn, watched him.
She noted more closely the marvelous change that a few months had wrought. She had thought him wonderful before, but now he was a very god. She did not think just this, for she knew nothing of gods—other than the demons that were supposed to enter the bodies of the sick; but she thought of him as some superior creature, and then she ceased to feel aggrieved that he should care so little for her.
He was not a man—he was something more than a man, and she had been very wicked to have treated him so shamefully. She would make amends.
So she tried to be more kind thereafter, though there still remained a trace of aloofness.
Together they sat upon the turf and ate their fruit, and as they ate they talked a little, for it is difficult for two young people to harbor animosity for a great time, especially when there is none other for them to talk to.
"When you have returned with me to my father, Thandar," the girl asked, "where shall you go then?"
"I shall return to the sea where I may watch for a ship to take me back to my own land," he replied.
"I have seen but one ship in all my life," said Nadara, "and that was years ago. It was when we lived close by the big water that it stopped a long way from shore and sent many smaller boats to land.
"There were many men in the boats, and when they landed, my father and mother took me far into the forest away from the sea, and there we stayed for many days until the strangers had sailed. They wandered up and down the coast and came back into the forests and the jungles for a few miles.
"My mother said that they were searching for me, and that if they found me they would take me away. I was very much frightened."