The first night's camp of the strangely assorted company was a wet one, for well on in the day the skies poured down the watery weight which had been troubling them once morning. Yet even in such miserable weather the four tribesmen of the Mayorunas declined to sleep in the same camp with the whites. They accepted the food tendered them, but when it was eaten they withdrew to some covert of their own to spend the night. Whereby the whites knew that, though their guides now could no longer suspect them of killing the lone hunter, they still were not accepted as friends.
"Did ye say them guys had a trick of jabbin' men in their hammicks at night, Renzo?" was Tim's significant question after the Indians had departed.
"Have no fear," Lourenço assured him. "They have promised to take us safely to their chief."
"How much is the word of a cannibal worth?" asked Knowlton.
"Worth everything, so long as you do nothing to make them forget it, senhor. Being uncivilized, they are not liars."
The lieutenant eyed him sharply, half minded to regard the answer as insolent. But there was no insolence in the Brazilian's straightforward gaze, and McKay laughed approvingly.
"Well spoken!" was the captain's comment.
"Among those people there are but two great crimes," Lourenço added. "They are, to speak falsely or to be a coward."
"Wherein a goodly portion of the so-called civilized world would fail to measure up to the standards of these cannibals," McKay said. "By the way, have you asked them about the Raposa?"
"No, Capitao. It is as well not to put into their heads the idea that we are hunting anyone here. I shall say nothing of that matter until we reach the chief who knows me."