“Oh, they were old women. They came, but I shook my fingers at them, and they ran.”
“Ho, ho! if they’d been old women they would not have run. So they ran; and you—why did you not run also?”
“We have come for the stone of fire, old mother.”
“Yinny! That is where the amapagati dance and make their medicine. No one can touch the rock and live.”
“We have touched it. The amapagati are fools; but surely if they touch it now that we claim it, they will die.”
The old dame grinned.
“See,” she said. “I know. You cannot frighten me with such things. But, as you say, the wise men are fools; they have made this side of the valley a fear to the people. Oh, I know their tricks—how they would prick cattle, when they strayed on this side, with a snake’s tooth, and then tell the people the deed was done by the fetich, the great snake-spirit. Ay, they have slain men too, and girls who went to the river for water have disappeared.”
“If that is so,” said Hume, “it would be better if the snake rock were removed.”
“Eweh, O red eyes—and the amapagati as well. They have beaten me. Let them die, I say.”
Hume gave a bit of tobacco to her, and as she filled her pipe he shot a significant look across at Sirayo.