“It is a hole in the sheer wall of a precipice a thousand feet deep,” he explained to the others the glimpse he had caught from beyond the spider web, as he clasped the Queen in his arms and leaped off. Henry had gathered Leoncia to him and was about to leap, when she stopped him. “Why did you accept Francis’ sacrifice?” she demanded. “Because ...” He paused and looked at her wonderingly. “Because I wanted you,” he completed. “Because I was engaged to you as well, while Francis was unattached. Besides, if I’m not greatly mistaken, Francis appears to be a pretty well satisfied bridegroom.” “No,” she shook her head emphatically. “He has a chivalrous spirit, and he is acting his part in order not to hurt her feelings.” “Oh, I don’t know. Remember, before the altar, at the Long House, when I said I was going to ask the Queen to marry me, that he bragged she wouldn’t marry me if I did ask? Well, the conclusion’s pretty obvious that he wanted her himself. And why shouldn’t he? He’s a bachelor. And she’s some nice woman herself.” But Leoncia scarcely heard. With a quick movement, leaning back in his arms away from him so that she could look him squarely in the eyes, she demanded: “How do you love me? Do you love me madly? Do you love me badly madly? Do I mean that to you, and more, and more, and more?” He could only look his bewilderment. “Do you?—do you?” she urged passionately. “Of course I do,” he made slow answer, “but it would never have entered my head to describe it that way. Why, you’re the one woman for me. Rather would I describe it as loving you deeply, and greatly, and enduringly. Why, you seem so much a part of me that I feel almost as if I had always known you. It was that way from the first.” “She is an abominable woman!” Leoncia broke forth irrelevantly. “I hated her from the first.” “My! What a spitfire! I hate to think how much you would have hated her had I married her instead of Francis.” “We’d better follow them,” she put an end to the discussion. And Henry, very much be-puzzled, clasped her tightly and leaped off into the white turmoil of water. * * * * * On the bank of the Gualaca River sat two Indian girls fishing. Just up-stream from them arose the precipitous cliff of one of the buttresses of the lofty mountains. The main stream flowed past in chocolate-colored spate; but, directly beneath them, where they fished, was a quiet eddy. No less quiet was the fishing. No bites jerked their rods in token that the bait was enticing. One of them, Nicoya, yawned, ate a banana, yawned again, and held the skin she was about to cast aside suspended in her hand. “We have been very quiet, Concordia,” she observed to her companion, “and it has won us no fish. Now shall I make a noise and a splash. Since they say ‘what goes up must come down,’ why should not something come up after something has gone down? I am going to try. There!”