She said nothing, and glancing round, I discovered that she was walking away, her fingers clasped before her, her eyes cast down, and looking profoundly dejected. Jumping up, I hurried after her. “Listen!” I said, coming to her side. “Do you know that there are others in the world like you who would understand your speech?”
“Oh, do I not! Yes—mother told me. I was young when you died, but, O mother, why did you not tell me more?”
“But where?”
“Oh, do you not think that I would go to them if I knew—that I would ask?”
“Does Nuflo know?”
She shook her head, walking dejectedly along.
“But have you asked him?” I persisted.
“Have I not! Not once—not a hundred times.”
Suddenly she paused. “Look,” she said, “now we are standing in Guayana again. And over there in Brazil, and up there towards the Cordilleras, it is unknown. And there are people there. Come, let us go and seek for my mother’s people in that place. With grandfather, but not the dogs; they would frighten the animals and betray us by barking to cruel men who would slay us with poisoned arrows.”
“O Rima, can you not understand? It is too far. And your grandfather, poor old man, would die of weariness and hunger and old age in some strange forest.”