“How?”
“Swaller ’em, sir, if I can manage it without being seen. Why, do you know I went down by that bit o’ stream, last night, to bathe my feet, and before I got there, I stopped short and sneezed, and before I had time to say, ‘Bless me!’ there was an Indian’s head popped up over a bush, and another from behind a stone, to see what was the matter.”
“Yes; I’ve noticed something of the kind,” said Cyril thoughtfully. “But I shouldn’t advise you to swallow any stones you find.”
“Why, sir?”
“Because they won’t agree with you.”
“They agree with chickens,” said Manning, grinning, “and make their hard food digest, so I don’t see why they shouldn’t agree with me, sir. But, I say, Master Perry, let it out now; I’m sure you’d feel a deal happier if you told us what the colonel’s hunting for.”
“I shall not tell you, because I don’t know. My father knows best about what he’s doing, I daresay. We thought, the other day, that we were in great danger; but you saw how quietly he took it, and how it all came to nothing.”
“Perhaps the time has not come yet,” said Cyril rather seriously; “don’t let’s talk too soon.”
No more was said then; but a few days later, the others thought of how prophetic the boy’s words had proved.
But it was not until another fortnight had passed, and a day had arrived when, after journeying through a deep defile of a similar character to that which they had threaded upon the day when they met the llama caravan, they reached a point upon the slope of a huge mountain, from which they looked down over a glorious picture of hill and dale, verdant forest and wide-reaching plain, with, in two places, thin serpentine threads of water glistening in the sun.