a little closer and leaned toward him where he squatted upon the ground.
“I am indeed the river devil,” said Esteban, “and I come and go as I wish. At night, when the village sleeps, I am wandering through the waters of the Ugogo, but always I come back again. I am waiting, Uhha, to try the people of the village of Obebe that I may know which are my friends and which my enemies. Already have I learned that Obebe is no friend of mine, and I am not sure of Khamis. Had Khamis been a good friend he would have brought me fine food and beer to drink. I could go when I pleased, but I wait to see if there be one in the village of Obebe who will set me free. Thus may I learn which is my best friend. Should there be such a one, Uhha, fortune would smile upon him always, his every wish would be granted and he would live to a great age, for he would have nothing to fear from the river devil, who would help him in all his undertakings. But listen, Uhha, tell no one what I have told you! I shall wait a little longer and then if there be no such friend in the village of Obebe I shall return to my father and mother, the Ugogo, and destroy the people of Obebe. Not one shall remain alive.”
The girl drew away, terrified. It was evident that she was much impressed.
“Do not be afraid,” he reassured her. “I shall not harm you.”
“But if you destroy all the people?” she demanded.
“Then, of course,” he said, “I cannot help you; but let us hope that someone comes and sets me free so that I shall know that I have at least one good friend here. Now run along, Uhha, and remember that you must tell no one what I have told you.”
She moved off a short distance and then returned.
“When will you destroy the village?” she asked.
“In a few days,” he said.
Uhha, trembling with terror, ran quickly away in the direction of the hut of her father, Khamis, the witch doctor. Esteban Miranda smiled a satisfied smile and crawled back into his hole to play with his diamonds.
Khamis the witch doctor was not in his hut when Uhha his daughter, faint from fright, crawled into the dim ulterior. Nor were his wives. With their children, the latter were in the fields beyond the palisade, where Uhha should have been. And so it was that the girl had time for thought before she saw any of them again, with the result that she recalled distinctly, what she had almost forgotten in the first frenzy of fear, that the river devil had impressed upon her that she must reveal to no one the thing that he had told her.
And she had been upon the point of telling her father all! What dire calamity then would have befallen her? She trembled at the very suggestion of a fate so awful that she could not even imagine it How close a call she had had! But what was she to do?
She lay huddled upon a mat of woven grasses, racking her poor, savage little brain for a solution of the immense problem that confronted her—the first problem that had ever entered her young life other than the constantly recurring one of how most easily to evade her share of the drudgery of the fields. Presently she sat suddenly erect, galvanized into statuesque rigidity by a thought engendered by the recollection of one of the river devil’s remarks. Why had it not occurred to her before? Very plainly he had said, and he had repeated it, that if he were released he would know that he had at least one friend in the village of Obebe, and that whoever released him would live to a great age and have every thing he wished for; but after a few minutes of thought Uhha drooped again. How was she, a little girl, to compass the liberation of the river devil alone?
“How, baba,” she asked her father, when he had returned to the hut, later in the day, “does the river devil destroy those who harm him?”
“As the fish in the river, so are the ways of the river devil—without number,” replied Khamis. “He might send the fish from the river and the game from the jungle and cause our crops to die. Then we should starve. He might bring the fire out of the sky at night and strike dead all the people of Obebe.”
“And you think he may do these things to us, baba?”
“He will not harm Khamis, who saved him from the death that Obebe would have inflicted,” replied the witch doctor.
Uhha recalled that the river devil had complained that Khamis had not brought him good food nor beer, but she said nothing about that, although she realized that her father was far from being so high in the good graces of the river devil as he seemed to think he was. Instead, she took another tack.
“How can he escape,” she asked, “while the collar is about his neck—who will remove it for him?”
“No one can remove it but Obebe, who carries in his pouch the bit of brass that makes the collar open,” replied Khamis; “but the river devil needs no help, for when the time comes that he wishes to be free he has but to become a snake and crawl forth from the iron band about his neck. Where are you going, Uhha?”
“I am going to visit the daughter of Obebe,” she called back over her shoulder.
The chief’s daughter was grinding maize, as Uhha should have been doing. She looked up and smiled as the daughter of the witch doctor approached.
“Make no noise, Uhha,” she cautioned, “for Obebe, my father, sleeps within.” She nodded toward the hut. The visitor sat down and the two girls chatted in low tones. They spoke of their ornaments, their coiffures, of the young men of the village, and often, when they spoke of these, they giggled. Their conversation was not unlike that which might pass between two young girls of any race or clime. As they talked, Uhha’s eyes often wandered toward the entrance to Obebe’s hut and many times her brows were contracted in much deeper thought than their idle passages warranted.
“Where,” she demanded suddenly, “is the armlet of copper wire that your fathers brother gave you at the beginning of the last moon?”
Obebe’s daughter shrugged. “He took it back from me,” she replied, “and give it to the sister of his youngest wife.”
Uhha appeared crestfallen. Could it be that she had coveted the copper bracelet? Her eyes closely scrutinized the person of her friend. Her brows almost met, so deeply was she thinking Suddenly her face brightened.
“The necklace of many beads that your father took from the body of the warrior captured for the last feast!” she exclaimed. “You have not lost it?”
“No,” replied her friend. “It is in the house of my father. When I grind maize it gets in my way and so I laid it aside.”
“May I see it?” asked Uhha. “I will fetch it.”
“No, you will awaken Obebe and he will be very angry,” said the chiefs daughter.
“I will not awaken him,” replied Uhha, and started to crawl toward the hut’s entrance.
Her friend tried to dissuade her. “I will fetch it as soon as baba has awakened,” she told Uhha, but Uhha paid no attention to her and presently was crawling cautiously into the interior of the hut. Once within she waited silently until her eyes became accustomed to the dim light. Against the opposite wall of the hut Obebe lay sprawled upon a sleeping mat. He snored lustily. Uhha crept toward him. Her stealth was the stealth of Sheeta the leopard. Her heart was beating like the tom-tom when the dance is at its height. She feared that its noise and her rapid breathing would awaken the old chief, of whom she was as terrified as of the river devil; but Obebe snored on.
Uhha came close to him. Her
