yond that you will have to take another, for no Peruvians
will venture so far from here."

"The senor wishes to escape towns," Gomez said. "He has no papers, and
wishes to escape questioning. You know what Spanish authorities are, and
how suspiciously they view the passage of a stranger. Could you not take
him down the Madeira?"

"It is a terrible journey," the Indian said. "Very few white men have ever
descended the river. There are bad falls and bad Indians. I myself have
never gone down it more than a few hundred miles. It would need much
courage, senor, and even then things might turn out badly. I would not
undertake such a journey single-handed, though with a good comrade I might
adventure it. You could not get a boat unless you bought one, and, as a
rule, men travel on light rafts, as these are safer on the rapids than
boats. That way has the advantage of being a good deal shorter than going
round by the Maranon, but the difficulties and dangers are very much
greater."

"Do you love the Spaniards?" Stephen asked.

The Indian's face darkened.

"They have been the destroyers of our race," he said; "the oppressors of
our country. I hate them with all my heart."

"Then I may tell you at once," Stephen said, "that I am an Englishman. I
am one of the officers of the English admiral who commands the fleet that
has destroyed their war-ships and is blockading their towns. I was wrecked
on the Peruvian coast and thrown into prison. They were about to hand me
over to the Inquisition as a heretic when I escaped, so you can understand
the danger that I should run in passing through any of their towns. I
speak, as you hear, the Chilian dialect, therefore I would be detected as
a stranger at once, and as I could give no satisfactory reply to
questions, and have no papers, I should at once be seized and sent back
again to Callao."

The Indian nodded gravely. He had heard of the misfortunes that had
befallen the Spaniards, and knew that the fleet that had inflicted such
damage upon them was commanded by an Englishman.

"The senor is provided with money," Gomez said. "I did not myself know
that he was an Englishman, though I suspected from the manner in which I
was hired that he had trouble with the Spaniards."

"I would have told you so, Gomez," Stephen said, "but I thought it better
that you should not know, so that if I were seized by the Spaniards you
could declare that you were wholly ignorant of my being an Englishm