Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/184

 native woman, and brought him fruit upon a dish of straw. Luiz rushed upon the food, and greedily ate the bananas, fresh and dried figs and other fruit, meat dried in the sun, and sweet bread of a different taste from ours. The girl moreover brought him a pitcherful of spring water and, crouching, watched him as he ate. When he had eaten, his whole body felt at ease; he thanked the girl with a loud voice for her gifts, for her bread and her charity, and thanked the others for their charity also. While he spoke, his gratitude grew upon him like a tender constraint of his overcharged heart, and burst forth in words such as he had never found before. The native woman sat opposite him and laughed.

And Dom Luiz thought that he must repeat what he had said, so that she should understand, and he thanked her as fervently as though he were praying. Meanwhile all the others had gone into the wood, and Luiz was afrald to remain by himself with so much joy in his heart, and in so lonely a spot. To retain the girl, he began to tell her who he was and whence he came, how the ship had foundered, and what he had suffered on the high seas. Presently Luiz noticed that she