We stood, as I judged, upon the reverse or northern side
of that ridge which to the south and west overlooked the valley of
the treasure. Above the plateau a stone-strewn scarp of earth led to
the forest, which reached to the very summit of the ridge; and
towards the summit, after pausing for a second or two to pant and
catch her breath, my strange guide continued her climb.
"What is your name, little boy?"
I told her, and she repeated it once or twice, to get it by heart.
"You may call me 'Metta," she said. "_He_ calls me 'Metta always,
when he is pleased with me, and that is almost every day. He is kind
to me; oh, yes, very kind--though terrible, of course. . . . Keep on
my left hand, Harry Brooks; so the breeze here will not blow from me
to you."
I drew up in a kind of giddiness, for that dreadful scent of death
had touched me again. She, too, halted with a little cry of dismay,
and a feeble motion of the hands, as if to wring them.
"Ah, you must keep wide of me. . . . That is my suffering, Harry
Brooks. I cannot bend over a flower but it withers, and the
butterflies die if they come near my breath . . . and that, too, is
_his_ doing. He would be kind to me, he said, and would een-oculate
me; yes, that is his word--een-oculate me, so that no poison could
ever harm me.
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