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Updated: June 26, 2025
"Come hither, senoritos, and set your eyes on these flowers!" Thus requested they comply, leading their horses nearer to the tree. "Well?" exclaims Cypriano, "I see nothing in them; that is, nothing that strikes me as being strange." "But I do," says Ludwig, whose father had given him some instruction in the science of botany.
"Not a bad idea," rejoins Gaspar, "and one quite practicable," he adds, with his eye taking in the dimensions of the cavern's mouth, but little larger than an ordinary stable door. "You're right, Senor Cypriano; we can do that." Without further speech, they set about the work; first rolling the larger masses of stalactite towards the entrance to form the foundation of the wall.
Passing with light hearts through the high grass by a narrow footpath for about three miles to the west of the river, we came to several neat square houses, with many cleanly-looking half-caste Portuguese standing in front of them to salute us. They are all enrolled in the militia, and our friend Cypriano is the commander of a division established here.
All this is new light to Ludwig, and turns his thoughts into the same channel of suspicion where those of Cypriano have been already running. Still, whatever he may think of Naraguana's son, he cannot bring himself to believe that Naraguana has been guilty. His father's friend, and hitherto their protector! "It cannot be!" he exclaims; "surely it cannot be!"
The hand on the horse's muzzle is that of Caspar the gaucho, the fingers that grope to get a gripe on the rider's neck being those of Cypriano. It is a crisis in the life of the young Tovas cacique, threatening either death or captivity.
By the time Cypriano has doffed the masquerading dress, and resumed his proper travelling costume, the cooking is done, and breakfast declared ready. While eating it, by way of accompaniment they naturally converse about the bird.
The young Indian, passive in the hands of the older and more hardened sinner, makes neither objection nor protest. Instead, stung by the allusion to "dear Cypriano," he is anxious as the other to come up with the pony and its rider. So, without another word, he springs back upon his horse, declaring his readiness to ride on.
"Nothing of the sort!" breaks in Cypriano, who, a little apart from the other two, has been for the last few seconds to all appearance holding communion with himself. "Nothing of the sort," he repeats riding towards them with a cheerful expression. "We'll neither need to go groping, Gaspar, nor yet at a crawl. Possibly, we may have to slacken the pace a bit; but that's all."
"It don't look like as if Gaspar was behind," returns Ludwig, hesitating in his speech, for his eyes, as his heart, tell him there is still something amiss. "Two of them," he continues, "are men, full grown, and the third is surely Cypriano." They have no time for further discussion or conjecture no occasion for it.
Thanks to that white stuff, our back-tracks can be seen without difficulty, and to a sufficient distance for our purpose." Long before Cypriano has reached the end of his explanatory discourse, Ludwig, of quick wit too, catches his meaning, and with an enthusiasm equalling that of the gaucho, cries out: "Viva, sobrino mio! You're a genius!"
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