'No,' returned the girl. 'I will go a little way down the gorge and watch, while you go in.'
The man did not trust her. How could he tell but that she had brought him to an ambush where he was to be murdered for the sake of his money and his good weapon? The rubies were real, so far as he could tell, but they might be only a bait. He shook his head.
'Listen,' said Baraka. 'At the other side of the pool there is a place where the water from this spring flows away under the rock. That is the passage.'
'I have seen the entrance,' answered the traveller. 'It is so small that a dog could not swim through it.'
'It looks so. But it is so deep that one can walk through it easily, with one's head above water. It is not more than fifty steps long. That is how I found it, for one day I wandered here alone in the morning for shade, when the air was like fire; and being alone I bathed in the clear pool to cool myself, and I found the way and brought back the stones, which I have hidden ever since. For if my father and brothers know that I have seen the treasure they will surely kill me, because the women must never learn the secret. You see,' she laughed a little, 'I am the first of us who has known it, since many generations, and I have already betrayed it to you! They are quite right to kill us when we find it out!' {10}
{10}
'This is an idle tale,' said the traveller. 'Go into the pool before me and I will believe and follow you under the rock. I will not go and leave you here.'
'You are not very brave, though you are so handsome! If they come and find me here, they will kill me first.'
'You say it, but I do not believe it. I think there is a deep hole in the passage and that I shall slip into it and be drowned, for no man could swim in such a place. I have but one life, and I do not care to lose it in a water-rat's trap. You must go in and lead the way if you wish me to trust you.'
Baraka hesitated and looked at him.
'How can I do this before you?' she asked.
'I will not go alone,' the man answered, for he suspected foul play. 'Do as you will.'
The girl took from her head the large cotton cloth with which she veiled herself, and folded it and laid it down on the rock by the pool; then she let
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