Chapter Seventy Five.
The Spirit of the Waters.
“The Mai d’Agoa! the Spirit of the Waters!” exclaimed Trevannion, while the rest stood speechless with astonishment, gazing alternately upon the Indian and the Irishman, who trembled with affright. “What do you mean? Is it something to be feared?”
Munday gave an emphatic nod, but said no word, being partly awed into silence and partly lost in meditating some plan of escape from this new peril.
“What did you see, Tom?” continued Trevannion, addressing himself to the Irishman, in hopes of receiving some explanation from that quarter.
“Be Sant Pathrick! yer honour, I can’t tell yez what it was. It was something like a head with a round shinin’ neck to it, just peepin’ up out av the wather. I saw a pair av eyes,—I didn’t stay for any more, for them eyes was enough to scare the sowl out av me. They were glittherin’ like two burnin’ coals! Munday calls it the spirit av the wathers. It looks more like the spirit av darkness!”
“The Mai d’Agoa, uncle,” interposed the young Paraense, speaking in a suppressed voice. “The Mother of the Waters! It’s only an Indian superstition, founded on the great water serpent,—the anaconda. No doubt it’s one of these he and Tom have seen swimming about under the butt-end of the log. If it be still there I shall have a look at it myself.”
The youth was proceeding towards the spot so hastily vacated by Munday and Tom, when the former, seizing him by the arm, arrested his progress. “For your life, young master, don’t go there! Stay where you are. It may not come forth, or may not crawl up to this place. I tell you it is the Spirit of the Waters!”