True, it was strange that no report of such a race had reached the ears of any traveller; yet here was Rima herself at my side, a living proof that such a race did exist.

Nuflo probably knew more than he would say; I had failed, as we have seen, to win the secret from him by fair means, and could not have recourse to foul--the rack and thumbscrew--to wring it from him.

To the Indians she was only an object of superstitious fear--a daughter of the Didi--and to them nothing of her origin was known.

And she, poor girl, had only a vague remembrance of a few words heard in childhood from her mother, and probably not rightly understood.
While these thoughts had been passing through my mind, Rima had been standing silent by, waiting, perhaps, for an answer to her last words.
Then stooping, she picked up a small pebble and tossed it three or four yards away.
"Do you see where it fell ?" she cried, turning towards me.

"That is on the border of Guayana--is it not?
Let us go there first." "Rima, how you distress me! We cannot go there.