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Quashy was engaged in animated conversation with this youth, and Manuela stood beside him listening. "I cannot understand," said Lawrence to Pedro, as they approached, "how men ever acquire dexterity in the use of these bolas." "Practice makes perfect, you know," said the guide, "and it doesn't matter much what sort of weapons you use, if you only learn to use them well.
"Not'ing," replied the girl in English, "but she trust Pedro." "So do I, with all my heart," returned Lawrence; "my question was prompted by curiosity, not by doubt." "I's not so sure," said Quashy, with a frown, and a tone of self-assertion which was rare in him. "Nice-lookin' men like him's not allers as nice as dey looks." "Fie, Quashy! I thought you were of a more trustful spirit."
I should hab said dat massa he said, says he, `Kurnel Muchbunks, says he, `I's a beggar." "Dat was a lie, Sooz'n," said Quashy, in some surprise. "I's afeard it was," assented Susan, gravely. "Well, an' what says de kurnel to dat?" asked the saddened negro, with a sigh.
Quashy, having just replenished the fire until the logs rose two feet or more from the ground, turned his back on the same, warmed his hands behind him, and gazed up through the over-arching boughs at the starry sky with that wistfully philosophical expression which negroes are apt to assume when their thoughts are "too deep," or too complex, "for utterance."
"I should have thought, Quashy," he said, with a return of his wonted gravity, "that a man of a thoughtful and contemplative turn of mind like you would have acquired the power of expressing almost any idea in Spanish by this time." "T'ank you for de compl'ment, massa," replied Quashy, "but I not so clebber as you t'ink. Der am some tings in flosuffy dat beats me.
Starting up wide awake at this, he found that Quashy lay beside him, sleeping quietly on his back, that Pedro was similarly engaged, that the Indian girl had disappeared into her dormitory, that the giant's castle looked more splendidly real than ever in the rising moonlight, and that no sound was to be heard save the brawling of the escaped river, as it fled from its glacier-prison to its home in the mighty sea.
I shall be very glad to remain and see what is to be seen here, and learn Spanish from Manuela." "Or teach her Angleesh," suggested the girl, bashfully. "Certainly. Whichever pleases you best, Manuela," returned Lawrence. "But s'pose," said Quashy, with a look of awful solemnity at Pedro "s'pose you nebber comes back at all! S'pose you gits drownded, or killed by a tiger, or shot by a Injin.
Quashy jumped up with such violence that the boys in ponchos fled as he hurried along the street with his bride, earnestly explaining to her as he went, his new-born plans. At the same moment that this conversation was taking place, Lawrence Armstrong and Pedro alias Conrad of the Mountains were holding equally interesting and perhaps more earnest converse over two pots of coffee in a restaurant.
Lawrence will dine with us this evening, Manuela, so you'd better see to having covers laid for three or, perhaps, for four. It may be that Senhor Quashy will honour us with " "T'ankee, kurnel, you's bery kind, but I's got a prebious engagement." "A previous engagement, eh?" repeated the colonel, much tickled with the excuse.
Pedro, who of course rode ahead in the capacity of guide, seemed to possess an unlimited supply of cash, and Lawrence Armstrong had at least sufficient to enable him to bear his fair share of the expenses of the journey. As for Quashy, being a servant he had no expenses to bear.
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