Came a small voice through the jagged rocks: "But I will not, Reda, I am not asleep. I saw other girls just like me, and I know I have not the sleeping fever. You always try to make me afraid!" This was Mary.
The angered tones of the old woman that followed this mild outburst of defiance could not be understood except through their accents and emphasis, for the dialect was part Spanish and part West Indian, such as might be used by natives of Central America.
"She's awfully mad!" warned Grace. "We better stay hiding!"
The other girls apparently held the same view of the situation, for while keeping necks craned and ears attentive to the intermittent voices, all were careful not to allow so much as the edge of a skirt to flutter out from behind the hiding rock.
"I do not believe grandpa has it at all," came the decided tones of Mary's round voice. "It is lost forever, and we shall never find it. And next time Janos comes I shall tell him I will not stay here. I am not a baby, and I feel strong and able—to—to go!" she finished, throwing a dramatic quiver into these last words, thereby proving the intensity of her emotion.
Almost a shriek from the old woman followed the declaration, and for a few seconds the girls felt as if something dreadful might happen to the child. Then, like some wild, reckless creature, the girl Mary was seen to dash out from her shelter in the rock, unmindful of the rain still falling, and before the eavesdroppers realized it, she was speeding down the hill, the long braids dangling over her shoulders, and her perpetual white dress soon climbing like a veritable swaddling cloth about her lithe form.
As if delighted with the play of the rain drops, she would toss up her face to defy them as she ran; then flop her arms up and down in a flying motion, not really unlike a wild mountain bird.
While the girls watched spellbound, they saw presently the old woman trudge along after her, still muttering the unintelligible gibberish, easily translatable into wrath and fury, whatever its peculiar language.
"Can we go now?" ventured Cleo.
"It's almost stopped raining," replied Lalia, and as they left the cave a sense of disappointment threw its shadow over all three.