ontempt which rose in his gorge, as it
was essential that the broken-spirited miner should not be frightened
out of his new-born candor.

"Ask him to ascertain if the Indians believe the white men are still
living?" he said. A fresh series of grunts and clicks elicited the
fact that the smoke-column seen the previous day on Guanaco Hill had
not been created by the tribe. Suarez begged the senor captain to
remember that he had spoken truly when he declared that its meaning was
unknown to him. Probably, from what he now learnt, the girl who threw
in her lot with the sailors had built a fire there.

Courtenay turned on his heel and quitted the cabin. The smell of the
Indians was loathsome, the mere sight of Suarez offensive. For this
discovery had overcast the happiness of his wooing as a thunder-cloud
darkens and blots the smiling life out of a fair valley. There rushed
in on him a hundred chilling thoughts, each gloomier than its
forerunner. Ravens croaked within him; misshapen imps whispered evil
omens; his spirit sat in gloom.

Christobal, well knowing how the demons of doubt and despair were
afflicting Courtenay, followed him to the upper deck. Boyle was in the
chart-house and Tollemache. Each man noted the captain's troubled
face; from him they glanced towards the doctor; but the Spaniard had
undergone his purgatory some hours earlier; his thin features were now
quite expressionless.

Courtenay obtained a telescope. With the tact which never failed him,
even in such a desperate crisis as this, he handed the doctor his
binoculars. Then, both men looked at the summit of Guanaco Hill.
Though it was high noon, and the landscape was shimmering in the
heat-mist created by the unusual power and brilliance of the sun, they
distinctly saw a thin pillar of smoke rising above the trees.
Courtenay closed his telescope. He made to approach Boyle, evidently
for the purpose of giving some order, when Christobal said quietly:

"Wait! I have something to say to you. You ought to remain on the
ship. Let _me_ go!"

"You?"

"Yes, I. After all, it is only a matter of taking command. One man
cannot go alone. He could not even pull the life-boat so far. Hence,
what you can do I can do, and I have no objection to dying in that way."

"Why should either of us die?"

"You know better than I how little chance there is of saving those men.
You may deem me callous if I suggest that the reasonable thing would be
to