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to roll round the enclosure like the bark of the Ariranha.[1]
"Hear his thunder,[2] and let the warrior՚s soul tremble as the earth in its depths!"
Araken pronouncing these terrible words, advanced to the middle of the wigwam. There he lifted up a great stone and stamped with force upon the ground, which suddenly clave asunder. A frightful noise, which seemed torn from the bowels of the earth, issued out from the dark cavern.
Irapúam neither trembled nor turned pale, but he felt his sight growing dim and his lips lost their power of speech.
"The Lord of Thunder is for the Pagé; the Lord of War will be for Irapúam."
The grim warrior left the wigwam, and soon his mighty form disappeared in the twilight.
The Pagé and his brother resumed their conversation in the doorway.
Martim, still surprised at what he had beheld, could not take his eyes off the deep cavern, which the stamp of the old Pagé had opened in the ground. A dull sound, like the distant boom of the waves breaking upon the shore, still echoed through the depths.
The Christian warrior reflected; he could not believe that the God of the Tabajáras had given such immense power to his priest.
Araken perceiving what was passing in the mind of the stranger, lit the Caximbo and seized the Maracá, or mystic rattle.
- ↑ Ariranha, the largest species of Brazilian otter.
- ↑ Ouve seu trovão. This was a stratagem practised by the Pagés to rule their votaries by terror. The hut was built upon a rock which contained a subterraneous passage, communicating by a narrow aperture with the plain. Araken had taken the precaution to block up the two entrances with stones, and thus to hide them from the people. Removing one stone from each end caused the air to rush through the narrow spiral channel with a loud noise, as the sea-shell murmurs when applied to the ear.