Page:Iracéma, the honey-lips (1886).djvu/54

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IRAÇÉMA.

At this moment, as if the thunder-god had heard the words of his virgin, the cave, which till then was still, roared with a dull roar.

"Listen! It is the voice of Tupan!"

Iraçéma presses the warrior՚s hand and leads him into the cave. They descend together into the bowels of the earth.

CHAPTER XIV.

The Tabajára braves, excited by their copious libations of foaming Cauim, were inflamed by the voice of Irapúam, who had so often led them to victory.

Wine appeases the thirst of the body, but breeds another and a wilder thirst in the savage mind.

The braves yell vengeance against the audacious stranger who had defied their arms, and who had offended the God of their fathers and their War Chief, the greatest of the Tabajáras.

Then they leapt with rage and rushed about in the darkness. The red light of the Ubirátán[1] which shone in the distance guided them to the cabin of Araken.

From time to time the foremost of those who came to spy the enemy raised themselves up from the ground.

"The Pagé is in the forest," they murmured.

"And the stranger?" inquired Irapúam.

"In the cabin with Iraçéma."

The great chief leaps up with a terrific bound, and reaches the Wigwam-door followed by his warriors.

The face of Cauby appears at the entrance. His arms guarded a space in front of him—say within the reach of a Maracajá՚s spring.[2]

  1. ↑ The iron wood of ubira (from pái, wood, and antan, hard).
  2. ↑ Maracajá is a wild cat. It must not be confounded with
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