dry and ribbed like mountains in the desert. Only at their feet, next the lake, the dark strip of trees and white specks of villages.
Near her against the light five cows stood with their noses to the water drinking. Women were kneeling on the stones, filling red jars. On forked sticks stuck up on the foreshore, frail fishing nets were hung out, drying, and on the nets a small bird sat facing the sun; he was red as a drop of new blood, from the arteries of the air.
From the straw huts under the trees, her urchin of the mud-chick was scuttling towards her, clutching something in his fist. He opened his hand to her, and on the palm lay three of the tiny cooking-pots, the ollitas which the natives had thrown into the water long ago, to the gods.
“Muy chiquitas!” he said, in his brisk way, a little, fighting tradesman; “do you buy them?”
“I have no money. To-morrow!” said Kate.
“To-morrow!” he said, like a pistol shot.
“To-morrow.”
He had forgiven her, but she had not forgiven him.
Somebody in the fresh Sunday morning was singing rather beautifully, letting the sound, as it were, produce itself.
A boy was prowling with a sling, prowling like a cat, to get the little birds. The red bird like a drop of new blood twittered upon the almost invisible fish-nets, then in a flash was gone. The boy prowled under the delicate green of the willow trees, stumbling over the great roots in the sand.
Along the edge of the water flew four dark birds, their necks pushed out, skimming