In spite of her starved condition, Ala was an attractive child. Instead of the usual shallow, shiny black eyes of Indian children, hers were big and brown and fringed with long lashes, and when she smiled it was as if an inner light shone through her wan, pinched little face.
At once she became the pet of the whole party, and although she, in turn, liked them all, it was Professor Ditson who always held first place in her heart. If he were long away from her, she would call plaintively, "_Cariwa! Cariwa!_" the Arara word for white man. Sometimes she would sing, in her tiny voice, folk-songs which she had learned from her mother, all about the wonderful deeds and doings of armadillos, agoutis, and other South American animals.
Before long, however, in spite of careful nursing, she began to sink rapidly. Then came days when she sang no more, but lay too weak even to taste the fruits which the boys were always bringing in to her from the forest. At last one night Professor Ditson, who always slept close beside her, heard a little far-away voice whisper in his ear, "White man, dear, dear white man!" and felt the touch of her hand against his cheek. A moment later, under the light of the setting moon, he saw that Ala had gone where there is no more sickness nor pain and where little children are safe forever.
Later on, when the rest of the party roused themselves before sunrise for another day, they found the scientist sitting grim and impassive in the star-shine, still holding the tiny cold hand of the little Indian girl in his. When old Jud found that clenched tightly in Ala's other hand was the shell of a tree-snail, all white and pink and gold, which he had given her days before, the old man broke down and sobbed as he looked at the peaceful little figure.
Under the light of Achenar, Canopus, and the other eternal stars which flared through the blackness of the tropical night, they buried her deep at the foot of a vast paradise tree which had towered above the forest hundreds of years before the first white man ever came to South America and whose mighty girth will be standing when the last Indian of that continent has passed to his forgotten fathers. As Professor Ditson repeated over the little grave what part he could remember of the Service for the Dead, from the heart of the jungle sounded the deep, coughing roar of a jaguar as it wandered restless through the night.