This woman’s face and arms were as white as mine—much whiter, indeed, for I was tanned by months of Asiatic sun—and the hair which fell about her shoulders and down below her waist, was white;—not light, or golden, but white.
For once in my life, I am willing to confess, my nerves went back on me; and I could think of nothing but what the natives in the village at the foot of the mountain had told me. Pythons and man-apes and devils I had seen no trace of, but here, beyond question, was the “Spirit of the Mountain.”
A stout, pointed staff of iron-wood, which I had been carrying to help me in my scramble up the mountain, slipped from my hand and fell clattering to the rocks. The woman turned her head toward the spot from which the sound had come, as if she heard the noise of the stick upon the stones, but although we were only a little way from each other, there was no expression in her face to indicate that she saw me.
Then she spoke.
“Madre!”
There was no answer, and she called again, clearer and louder.
“Ma-dre!”
There was a sound of swift steps on the stones, and a moment later another woman—an older woman—came from behind one of the rocks.
As if in answer to some question in the girl’s face, the woman looked down and saw me.
In an instant she had sprung before the younger woman, as if to hide her from me.