"See yonder eagle, Weenah? Benee's aim is unerring; his hand is the hand of the rock, his eye the eye of the kron-dah" (a kind of hawk), "yet his touch on the trigger light as the moss-flax. Behold!"
He raised the rifle as he spoke, and without even appearing to take aim he fired.
Next moment the bird of Jove turned a somersault. It was a death-spasm. Down, down he fell earthwards, his breast-feathers following more slowly, like a shower of snow sparkling in the sunshine.
Weenah was almost paralysed with terror, but Benee took her gently in his arms, and, kissing her brow and bonnie raven hair, soothed her and stilled her alarms.
Hand in hand now through the forest, as in the days of yore! Both almost too happy to speak, Benee and his little Indian maiden! Hand in hand over the plain, through the crimson heath and the heather, heeding nothing, seeing nothing, knowing nothing save their own great happiness! Hand in hand until they stood beside Weenah's mother's cottage; and her parents soon ran out to welcome and to bless them!
Theirs was no ordinary hut, for the father had been far to the east and had dwelt among white men on the banks of the rapid-rolling Madeira.
When he had returned, slaves had come with him--young men whom he had bought, for the aborigines barter their children for cloth or schnapps. And these slaves brought with them tools of the white men--axes, saws, adzes, hammers, spades, and shovels.
Then Shooks-gee (swift of foot) had cut himself timber from the forest, and, aided by his slaves, had set to work; and lo! in three moons this cottage by the wood arose, and the queen of the cannibals herself had none better.
But Benee was welcomed and food set before him, milk of the llama, corn-cakes, and eggs of the heron and treel-ba (a kind of plover).
Then warm drinks of coca (not cocoa) were given him, and the child Weenah's eyes were never turned away while he ate and drank.