Leon was about to open his mouth to reply, but a look from the half-breed caused the words to expire on his lips. The reader now knows why the captain, after saluting the ladies, started to place himself at the head of the band and watch Diego.
The sun was on the point of disappearing upon the horizon when the party reached the wood which Leon had indicated to Don Juan as the spot where they would pass the night. All halted, and the preparations for camping were made.
In Chili, and generally throughout South America, you do not find on the roads that infinite number of inns and hostelries which encumber ours, and where travellers are so pitilessly plundered. In these countries, which are almost deserted, owing to the tyrannical rule of the Spaniards and the philanthropy of the English, this is how people behave in order to obtain rest after a long day's journey.
The travellers choose the spot which appears to them most suitable, generally on the banks of a river, the mules are unloaded, and they are left for the night to their own instincts, which never deceive them, and enable them to find pasture. The bales are placed upon one another in a circle of sixty or eighty feet; in the middle of this enclosure a large fire is lit and carefully kept up in order to keep wild beasts at bay, and each man placing his weapons by his side arranges himself to pass the night as comfortably as he can.
Our travellers installed themselves in the way we have described, with this distinction, that as General Soto-Mayor had a tent among his baggage, the peons put it up in the centre of the camp, and as it was divided into two parts, it formed sleeping rooms for Don Juan, his wife, and his daughters. After a supper of jerked beef and ham, the muleteers, wearied with their day's journey, took a glance around to see that all was in order, and then lay down, with the exception of one who remained up as sentry.
Diego, Leon, and the Soto-Mayor family were sitting round the fire and talking of the distance they still had to go before reaching their destination. In these countries there is no twilight, and the supper was hardly over before it became pitch dark.
"Miguel!" the general said to a peon standing close behind him, "give me the bota."
The peon fetched a large goatskin, which might contain some fifteen quarts, and was full of rum.
"Gentlemen!" the general continued, addressing the smugglers, "be kind enough to taste this rum; it is a present made me by General Saint Martin, in memory of the battle of Maypa, in which I was wounded while charging a Spanish square."
The bota passed from hand to hand, while the ladies, seated on carpets, were sipping water and smoking their cigarettes.