The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1880-04-21
The Man-Eater.


1t was about five o'clock in the
evening. The sun famed fiercely as
if it intended TO fire my palm
matched cabin in its last, red rays.
The caribbean, dyed scarlet by the
reflection of the cloudless crimson
heavens, broken in lazy swells on
the hard strand. Great pelicans and
noisy gulls skinned the sluggish
rollers of this ocean OF blood. Swarms
OF mosquitoes and gnats danced like
moths in the bands of light that found
their way through the interstices OF
the foliage. The hot and breathless
air was refracted ten-fold hotter from
the cleaning sand. Everywhere, in
short, in earth, water and sky, the
genius of endless summer held full
sway.
Lolling in my hammock with pen
dant legs, and cigar between my
teeth, l idly awaited the return OF
my two hunters from an expedition
into the mountains, which my regu-
larly bi-weekly attacks from fever
had prevented me from joining. In
front of the cabin withered Indian
woman was beating an omelet OF
turtle eggs up in a calabash with
wooden spoon, occasionally inter-
rupting that work to turn tortilla
or hammock of cracked corn that was
browning in fiat stone in the mid
die OF a fire OF red Goals, or to take
few patfs at iGea aaapg, slsnl s Sll a Of
ear. Squatting like a cat in the
warm ashes beside her was a little
naked girl, her grandchild, who had
just returned from replenishing my
bamboo water,jar at the river. She,
too, smoked, but gravely and silently,
while her grandmother kept up a
running fire OF scolding at her for
some trivial offence.
Suddenly this resttul picture was
disturbed. A rapid shadow passed
before the group, leaving in the air a
train of doletul cries. The old wo-
man started to her 1eet with a shrill
oath in her mongrel Spanish, the lit.
tie girl uttered a scream, and spring
ing from my hammock 1 confronted
the peon and companion of Vicente,
my hunter-in chief.
"What is tie matter now" / de.
manded. "What brings you here
Where is Vicente ?"
"Dead gasped the fellow, who
was trembling with fatigue and SO
bathed in perspiration that he might
have risen out of the sea. Dead u
dead shrieked a woman's voice
behind me; "Jesus Maria Dead +! .
Gel Cebado," returned the peon,
in voice that was barely audible.
For the love of heaven give me a
drink OF water"
The little girl hurried away for
the water, while her grandmother
growled between her teeth: $50,
SO 4! Another, ell The old cayman
must be getting fat. This is now the
twelfth human being he has de.
voured,"
Until now the woman who had re.
piled with such emotion to the poems
first speech, bad stood motionless,
like one stricken by a thunderbolt.
AT the old woman's last words she
threw up her arms and fell senseless,
with low, sobbing cry.
She was Anita, the wife of my
hunter, young Indian OF, at most,
seventeen, slight and graceful as a
panther, with skin like new bronze,
smooth as velvet and firm as amber.
her long, black hair was arranged
after fashion common alike to the
Central American Indian and the
German peasant woman, in two
plaits, and ornamented with "a stray
spray of wax-like flowers. Her sin.
gle garment, chemise OF the soft
fiber of the silk cotton tree, was Sc.
cured at the waist with sash OF
gaudy Manchester print. A couple