CHAPTER XIV.
“Aniwee, love of Piñone’s heart, do I see thee once more? Child of the breezy plain, doth Piñone dream?”
Such was the greeting of the Araucanian chief as he clasped to his breast the girl whom in his dreary captivity amongst the Trauco people, he had dreamt of, thought of day and night, yet never dared hope to see again.
And Aniwee, who had deemed him dead, who had thought of her young warrior husband as beyond the pale of human communication, in this moment of glad reunion, of joy indescribable, could find no words in which to answer him.
Large tears stood in her dark eyes; tears of joy they were. Like Piñone, she feared that this meeting must be a dream. But the sound of voices behind her aroused her from any further thoughts of such a kind, and brought speech back to her paralysed lips.
“Piñone,” she cried, “and hast thou been a prisoner all this time, and Aniwee so near, yet knowing nothing of it?”
“Ah! no, Carita; at one time Piñone and Cuastral were far from this. They have descended a great river, and come from forest scenes, strange, weird, and wonderful. For the fortresses of the Traucos are hidden deep in the forests and amidst the awful crags that hold aloft the monster snow Gualichus, which tower so mightily to the skies.”