“Do not cry, Pipina,” he said. “Bomba has many times gone into the jungle and come back again. Did he not go to the Moving Mountain and return? Did he not come back from the Giant Cataract and the island of snakes? The gods will watch over me, and you can stay here safe with the women of Hondura’s tribe and help them with their cooking and their weaving. And you can tell them of the hole in the floor and how you were wiser than all the warriors of Nascanora.”