, broken down the bananas, and
sliced off the green pineapples.

Indignant at such vandalism, Marcoy caught the first offender by the
plaited tails at the back of the neck. "What are you doing?" he cried.

"I am neither crazy nor drunk, Taytachay" (dear little father), calmly
explained the peon with his placid smile. "But my fellows and I don't
want to be sent any more to work at Sausipata." As the white man
regarded him with stupefaction, "Thou art strange here," pursued the
Indian, "and canst know nothing about us. Promise not to tell Aragon,
and I will make thee wise."

"Why Aragon more than anybody else?" asked Marcoy.

"Because Senor Aragon is nephew to Don Rebollido, the governor, and
Sausipata belongs to Rebollido; and if he were to learn what we have
done, we should be flogged and sent to prison to rot."

The explanation, drawn out with many threats when the Indians had been
driven from their work of ruin and placed once more in line of march,
was curious.

The able gobernador of Marcapata had had the sagacious idea of making
the local penitentiary out of his farm of Sausipata! It was cultivated
entirely by the labor of his culprits. When culprits were scarce, the
chicha-drinkers, the corner-loungers, became criminals and disturbers of
the peace, for whom a sojourn at Sausipata was the obvious cure. Aragon,
the nephew, shared his uncle's ability, and visited the plantation month
by month. But the life in this paradise was not relished by the
convicts. The regimen was strict, the food everywhere abounding, was not
for them, and the vicinity of the wild Chunchos was not reassuring.
Often a peon would appear in the market-place of Marcapata wrapped
merely in a banana leaf, which, cracking in the sun, reduced all
pretence of decent covering to an irony. This evidence of the spoliation
of a Chuncho would be received in the worst possible part by the
gobernador, who would beat the complainant back to his servitude,
remarking with ingenuity that Providence was more responsible for the
acts of the savages than he was.

This strange history, told with profound earnestness, was enough to
make any one laugh, but Marcoy could not be blind to its side of
oppression and tyranny. This was the way, then, that the humble and
primitive gobernador, who had presented himself to the travelers
barefoot, was enriching himself by the knaveries of office! Marcoy could
not take heart to inform Juan of Aragon of the devastation be