an, and
believed that I was only a trader travelling on business."

"They would not have believed me," Gomez laughed. "You had no goods with
you, and your speech showed that you were not a Peruvian. I have often
wondered on the way to what nation you belonged, and how it was that one
so young could be ready to undertake so desperate an enterprise as you
proposed; but now that I know you are an officer under the terrible
English admiral I can well understand it."

"I would do much," Pita said, "for any enemy of the Spaniards; and more
for this reason than for the sake of money. I am ready to undertake to do
my best to take you in safety to Barra; beyond that I would not go. The
river below that is, as I hear, quite open, and you could journey down
without difficulty save such as you would meet with from the Portuguese
authorities; but the distance would be too great for me to return. Even
from Barra it would be a journey fully two thousand miles home again."

"What would be your terms for taking me to Barra?"

"I do not say that I would take you there, senor, I only say that I would
try and do so. As I tell you, I have never journeyed far down the Madeira
myself, and know not what the difficulties may be. For that reason I shall
want half the money paid to me when we reach Cuzco, near which live my
wife and family, and I must leave this with them in case I never return. I
will think over what pay I shall require for myself and my comrade. It is
not a matter upon which one can decide at a word."

"I can quite understand that, Pita. I must of course keep sufficient in
hand to pay my expenses down to Para, where I can doubtless obtain a
passage by an English ship. But I am ready to pay any sum you may ask that
is within my means. Now, Gomez, we had better go out and look to the
mules, and leave Pita to himself to think the matter over."

"The Indian will not overcharge you," Gomez said when they were outside
the hut; "the pay of these men is small. They value their lives lightly,
and when, like Pita, they once take to the life of a guide, either to
those who are searching for mines or to traders, they never settle down.
They are proud of the confidence placed in them, and of their own skill as
guides, and so long as they can earn enough to keep their families during
their absence--and a very little suffices for that--they are contented."

"I suppose there are mines to be discovered yet, Gomez?"

"Assuredly there are,