Page:Iracéma, the honey-lips (1886).djvu/49

"The beach belongs to the Pytiguaras, the Lords of the Palm groves."

The warriors of the great tribe who inhabited the seaboard called themselves Pytiguaras, Lords of the Valleys; but the Tabajáras, their enemies, contemptuously termed them Potyuáras, or Shrimp-Eaters.

Iraçéma did not wish to offend the white warrior, and therefore, when speaking of the Pytiguaras, she gave them the warlike name which they had chosen for themselves.

The stranger reflected, and retained for a moment, on the lip of prudence, the word which he was about to utter.

"The Seagull՚s song is the War-cry of the brave Poty, the friend of thy guest."

The maiden trembled for her brethren. The fame of the fierce Poty, brother of Jacaúna, had spread afar, from the sea-shore to the heights of the Serra. Scarcely was there a wigwam which had not panted with a lust of vengeance; in almost all of them the blow of his unerring tomahawk had laid a warrior low in his Camocim.

Iraçéma thought that Poty came at the head of his braves to deliver his friend. Doubtless it was he who had sounded the Sea-shell at the time when the combat began. It was therefore in a tone of mixed sadness and sweetness that she replied—

"The stranger is saved; the brethren of Iraçéma will die, for she will not speak."

"Cast out this grief from thy soul, Tabajára maid! The stranger in leaving thy prairies will not leave in them, like the famished tiger, a trail of blood."

Iraçéma took the hand of the white warrior and kissed it.

"The stranger՚s smile," she continued, "blunts the remembrance of the harm they wish me."

Martim rose and walked to the door.

"Where goes the white warrior?"