Our story must establish the fact in regard to this cave—a fact well known in the earlier records of the country, more than one white man having found himself sufficiently athletic to plunge behind the sheet of water and gain the room.
It was mid-day, and the sun, penetrating the sheet of the falls, cast a not uncheerful light into the cave, the size and gloom of which were still further relieved by a fire burning in the centre, and one or more torches stuck in the fissures of the rocks. Before this fire stood a woman of forty or fifty years of age, gazing intently upon the white, liquid, and tumultuous covering to the door of her home, and yet the expression of her eye showed that her thoughts were far beyond the place in which she stood.
She was taller than the wont of Indian women, more slender than is customary with them at her period of life, and altogether, presented a keenness and springiness of fibre that reminded one of Arab more than aboriginal blood. Her brow was high, retreating, and narrow, with arched and contracted brows, beneath which fairly burned a pair of intense, restless eyes.
At one side, stretched upon skins, appeared what might have been mistaken for a white veil, except that a draft of air caused a portion of it to rise and fall, showing it to be a mass of human hair. Yet so motionless was the figure, so still a tiny moccasoned foot, just perceptible, and so ghastly the hue and abundance of the covering, that all suggested an image of death.
At length the tall woman turned sharply round and addressed the object upon the mats.
"How much longer will you sleep, Skoke? Get up, I tell thee."
At this ungracious speech—for Skoke[13]means snake—the figure started slightly, but did not obey. After some silence she spoke again, "Wa-ain (white soul) get up and eat, our people will soon be here." Still no motion nor reply. At length the woman, in a sharper accent, resumed,
"Bridget Vines, I bid thee arise!" and she laughed in an under tone.
The figure slowly lifted itself up and looked upon the speaker. "Ascáshe,[14] I will answer only to my own name."
"As you like," retorted the other. "Skoke is as good a name as Ascáshe." A truism which the other did not seem disposed to question—the one meaning a snake, the other a spider, or "net-weaver."