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Updated: May 16, 2025
The young men went equipped for the chase, but as sportsmen who had no intention of going far from their companions in pursuit of any game. Manoel could be trusted for that, and the girls for Lina could not leave her mistress went prepared for a walk, an excursion of two or three leagues being not too long to frighten them. Neither Joam Garral nor Yaquita had time to go with them.
"Neither you nor I?" asked Joam Garral. "It is not with money, then, that your silence is to be bought?" "No! No matter how much you offered me!" "What do you want, then?" "Joam Garral," replied Torres, "here is my proposal. Do not be in a hurry to reply by a formal refusal. Remember that you are in my power." "What is this proposal?" asked Joam. Torres hesitated for a moment.
This Joam Garral knew by experience, and he intended to profit by the phenomenon to launch the jangada, after having built it in comfort on the river bank. In fact, between the mean and the higher level the height of the Amazon could vary as much as forty feet, and between the mean and the lower level as much as thirty feet. A difference of seventy feet like this gave the fazender all he required.
The superintendent of the men, after receiving the instructions of Joam Garral, had first cleared the ground of the creepers, brushwood, weeds, and arborescent plants which obstructed it.
But the second still lived, and came on, and there was no way of avoiding him. The huge alligator tore up to Joam Garral, and after knocking him over with a sweep of his tail, ran at him with open jaws. At this moment Torres rushed from the cabin, hatchet in hand, and struck such a terrific blow that its edge sunk into the jaw of the cayman and left him defenseless.
To house the crew a good many huts were required, and these gave to the jangada the appearance of a small village got adrift, and, to tell the truth, it was a better built and better peopled village than many of those on the Upper Amazon. For the Indians Joam Garral had designed regular cabins huts without walls, with only light poles supporting the roof of foliage.
The sun was already low on the horizon, and with the rapidity peculiar to these low latitudes, was about to set vertically, like an enormous meteor. Joam Garral and his wife, Lina, and old Cybele, were in front of the house.
In short, ten years after the arrival of Joam Garral at the farm at Iquitos the fazenda had become one of the richest establishments on the Upper Amazon. Thanks to the good management exercised by the young clerk over the works at home and the business abroad, its prosperity daily increased. The Portuguese did not wait so long to acknowledge what he owed to Joam Garral.
"One more question," continued Benito. "What was the proposition that Torres made to my father during the short interview which preceded his expulsion?" "He threatened to denounce Joam Garral as being Joam Dacosta, if he declined to purchase his silence." "And at what price?" "At the price of his daughter's hand!" answered Manoel unhesitatingly, but pale with anger.
"Yes, this instant!" exclaimed Benito, "or I will throw you overboard." Torres shrugged his shoulders. "No threats," he said; "they are of no use. It suits me also to land, and without delay. But you will remember me, Joam Garral. We shall not be long before we meet." "If it only depends on me," answered Joam Garral, "we shall soon meet, and rather sooner, perhaps, than you will like.
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