Page:Green Mansions 1904.djvu/171

Rh even before the river is reached there is a range of precipitous mountains called by the same name—just there where your pebble fell—the mountains of Riolama"

Hardly had the name fallen from my lips before a change swift as lightning came over her countenance; all doubt, anxiety, petulance, hope, and despondence, and these in ever-varying degrees, chasing each other like shadows, had vanished, and she was instinct and burning with some new powerful emotion which had flashed into her soul.

"Riolama! Riolama!" she repeated so rapidly and in a tone so sharp that it tingled in the brain. "That is the place I am seeking! There was my mother found—there are her people and mine! Therefore was I called Riolama—that is my name!"

"Rima!" I returned, astonished at her words.

"No, no, no—Riolama. When I was a child, and the priest baptised me, he named me Riolama—the place where my mother was found. But it was long to say, and they called me Rima."

Suddenly she became still, and then cried in a ringing voice—

"And he knew it all along—that old man—he knew that Riolama was near—only there where the pebble fell—that we could go there!"

While speaking she turned towards her home, pointing with raised hand. Her whole appearance now reminded me of that first meeting with her when the serpent bit me; the soft red of her irides shone like fire, her delicate skin seemed to glow with an intense rose-colour, and her