"I doubt it not, but I should like to know its name."
"You see before you the fazenda do Rio d'Ouro; in former days all these mountains that you see were filled with gold and precious stones."
"And now?" I asked, interested in spite of myself.
"Oh, now they do not work the mines; they are exhausted or inundated with water. The master pretends that it is much better to work the earth."
"He is not wrong. What is the name of the good man who reasons so judiciously?"
"I do not know, mi amo; they pretend that the fazenda, and all the lands appertaining to it, belong to don Zeno Cabral, but I should not dare to assert it; but, for that matter, it would not astonish me, for singular things are related as to what passes in the caldeiras that you see down there," added he, pointing with his finger to three round holes in the form of a funnel, pierced in the rocks.
"What do they relate, then, that is so extraordinary?"
"Oh, frightful things, mi amo, and things which I, a poor Indian, should never dare to repeat."
It was in vain I pressed my guide to explain himself; I could only draw from him ejaculations of fright, accompanied by innumerable signs of the cross. Wearied of doing so, I gave up asking any farther about a subject which appeared to displease him so much.
"In what time will we arrive at the fazenda?" I asked.