red as if they would start from their sockets. At
length it reached the bank, and, staggering forward, rolled over in the
sand, as if it was going to die!

What could all this mean? Had it, too, been attacked by the "caribes?"
No; that was not likely, as the bite of these creatures upon the hard
shanks of the mule could not have produced such an effect. They might
have frightened it, but they could not have thrown it into "fits"--for
it was evidently in some sort of a fit at that moment.

It might have been a puzzle to our party not easily solved, had Guapo
not been upon the spot. But Guapo had witnessed such an incident
before. Just before the mule gave the first plunge Guapo's eyes had
been wandering in that direction. He had noticed an odd-looking form
glide near the mule and pass under the animal's belly. This creature
was of a greenish-yellow colour, about five feet in length, and four or
five inches thick. It resembled some kind of water-snake more than a
fish, but Guapo knew it was not a snake, but an eel. It was the great
_electric eel_--the "temblador," or "gymnotus."

This explained the mystery. The gymnotus, having placed itself under
the belly of the unsuspecting mule, was able to bring its body in
contact at all points, and hence the powerful shock that had created
such an effect.

The mule, however, soon recovered, but from that time forward, no
coaxing, nor leading, nor driving, nor whipping, nor pushing, would
induce that same mule to go within twenty feet of the bank of that same
piece of water.

Guapo now bethought himself of the narrow escape he himself had had
while swimming across to the palm-woods; and the appearance of the
gymnotus only rendered him more determined to keep the promise he had
made to Leon,--that is, that he would revenge him of the caribes.

None of them could understand how Guapo was to get this revenge without
catching the fish, and that would be difficult to do. Guapo, however,
showed them how on the very next day.

During that evening he made an excursion into the wood, and returned
home carrying with him a large bundle of roots.

They were the roots of two species of plants--one of the genus
_Piscidea_, the other a _Jacquinia_. Out of these, when properly
pounded together, Guapo intended to make the celebrated "barbasco," or
fish-poison, which is used by all the Indians of South America in
capturing fish. Guapo knew that a sufficient quantity of the barba