Page:An account of a savage girl.djvu/39

Rh the river at their back. Soon after, she who is now become Madamoiselle Le Blanc, perceived the first a chaplet on the ground, which, no doubt, had been dropt by some passenger. Whether the novelty of the object delighted her, or whether it brought to her remembrance something of the same kind that she had seen before, is not known; but she immediately fell a dancing and exclaiming for joy: and being apprehensive lest her companion should deprive her of her little treasure, she stretched out her hand to take it up; upon which the other, with her baton, struck her so severe a stroke on the hand, that she lost the use of it for some moments. She had, however, strength enough left as with the weapon in her other hand to return the blow on the forehead of her antagonist, with such a force as to knock her to the ground, screaming frightfully. The chaplet was the reward of her victory, of which she made herself a bracelet. Touched in the mean time, as it would seem with compassion for her companion, whose wound bled very much, she ran in search of some frogs, and finding one, she stripped off it's skin, which she spread on her forehead, to stop the blood, binding up the wound with a thread of the bark of a tree, which she peeled off with her nails. After this they separated; she that was wounded taking the road towards the river, and the victorious Le Blanc that towards Songi.