“What, sir!” replied Minha, with a pleasant seriousness, “you do not know, among other fables, that an enormous reptile called the ‘minhocao,’’ sometimes visits the Amazon, and that the waters of the river rise or fall according as this serpent plunges in or quits them, so gigantic is he?”
“But have you ever seen this phenomenal minhocao?”
“Alas, no!” replied Lina.
“What a pity!” Fragoso thought it proper to add.
“And the ‘Mae d’Aqua,’” continued the girl—“that proud and redoubtable woman whose look fascinates and drags beneath the waters of the river the imprudent ones who gaze a her.”
“Oh, as for the ‘Mae d’Aqua,’ she exists!” cried the naïve Lina; “they say that she still walks on the banks, but disappears like a water sprite as soon as you approach her.”
“Very well, Lina,” said Benito; “the first time you see her just let me know.”
“So that she may seize you and take you to the bottom of the river? Never, Mr. Benito!”
“She believes it!” shouted Minha.
“There are people who believe in the trunk of Manaos,” said Fragoso, always ready to intervene on behalf of Lina.