“Then, begging your pardon again, colonel, wouldn’t it ha’ been better to have come with a couple of companies of foot, and marched up with fixed bayonets, and told him that you didn’t mean to stand any nonsense, but were going to take as much seed as you liked?”
“Invited the rulers of the country to send a little army after us?”
“Yes, of course, sir; but they’ve got no soldiers out here as could face British Grenadiers.”
The colonel was ready to listen to every opinion that night, and he replied quietly:
“I thought it all out before I started, and this was the only way—to come up into the mountains as simple travellers, reach the hot slopes and valley regions where the cinchona grows, and then trust to our good fortune to get a good supply of the seed. But, even now, from our start from San Geronimo we have been watched. You have noticed it too, boys. Even the guide we took has arrayed himself against us from the first, and, while seeming to obey my orders, has taken care to communicate with every one we passed that he was suspicious of my motives. Every mile we have come through the mountain-range has been noted, and will be noted, till we get back.”
“Why not go back, then, some other way, sir?”
“Because we cannot cross the mountains where we please. The road we followed is one which, no doubt, dates from the days when the Incas ruled, and there are others here and there at intervals, but they will be of no use to us. Somehow or other, we must go back by the way we came, and I hope to take at least one mule-load with us to get safely to England. There, that is enough for to-night. Now for a good rest and we shall see what to-morrow brings forth. Cyril and Perry, you will be on sentry till as near midnight as you can guess, and then rouse me. I’m going now to take a look round at the mules, and then I shall lie down.”
He rose and walked away to where the mules were cropping the grass, which grew abundantly in the open places, and as soon as he was out of hearing, John Manning began to growl.
“All right, young gentlemen,” he said, “I’m ready for anything; but, of all the wild scarum-harum games I was ever in, this is about the wildest. Come up here to steal stuff! for that’s what it is, and you can’t call it anything else. I’ve know’d people steal every mortal thing nearly, from a horse down to a pocket-knife. I’ve been where the niggers tickled you when you was asleep and made you roll over, so that they could steal the blanket you lay upon. I’ve seen the crows in Indy steal the food out of the dogs’ mouths; but this beats everything.”
“Why?” said Perry shortly.