"Because Carabaño is a particularly offensive person. He has an old grudge against me, and if the railway brings him in this direction, he will not be able to deny himself the pleasure of a visit. I do not care that my mother and sister should meet him; nor shall I meet him myself if I can avoid it. I have made arrangements for a hasty departure if I hear that he is in the neighbourhood.... But come and see my new stables. They're finished since you were here last, and I've got a new hunter you'd give your eyes for. Come along!"
Antonio de Mello was very proud of his new stables. He had lived for some time in England, whence he returned with a pretty taste in horseflesh and an ambition to start a stud. Like many of his countrymen he was a good linguist, being equally at home in English, French, and Spanish, and having some knowledge also of the native dialects of his district. He had met Will one day when riding in the neighbourhood of the railway, and struck up a friendship with him. Will had been several times to his house, where the señora and señorita had made him very welcome.
He accompanied Antonio to the stables, just completed, and duly admired their up-to-date appointments and the new hunter. He thought it a little odd that the old stables were still left standing. They were very tumbledown; indeed, an English gentleman who owned a house and gardens like the hacienda would have regarded them as an eyesore which it behoved him to remove as soon as possible. But the typical Venezuelan is not fastidious, and though Antonio had acquired some of the manners and something of the outlook of Englishmen, he still retained much of the careless and happy-go-lucky traits of the South American, and was quite content to allow his old stables to fall to pieces within a few yards of his front door.
After strolling round for half-an-hour, Will declared that it was time to be off. Antonio went down with him to the jetty; and, promising to repeat the visit before long, Will set the hydroplane skimming down the canal until he came to the stream again. Then, turning to the left, he went on for three or four miles, until the silence of the forest was broken by a low humming sound, in which, as it grew louder, it was possible to distinguish the blows of hammers, the thuds of spades, and the shouts of men. The labourers were not in sight, being concealed by the high bank and its dense vegetation.
Bringing his vessel to a stop, Will gave a low whistle. Instantly a dark face appeared in the mass of foliage on the bank, and a negro boy, about sixteen years of age, slid down towards the brink of the stream. To him Will flung the painter; the boy caught it and, plunging back among the bushes, began to haul in, Will lying at full length on the deck. The hydroplane passed through the screen of foliage into a shallow recess in the bank, where it was completely hidden from view, either from the stream or from the ground above. Owing to the constant shifting of the camp as the railway lengthened, Will had had some trouble in finding harbourage at once secure and convenient for his vessel. The labourers were a rough lot, and though it was unlikely that any of them would have been able to work the engine, it was always possible that one of them, if feloniously inclined, or perhaps simply bent on mischief, might paddle or pole the vessel down the river, or at any rate do a good deal of damage to it. Will therefore always sought for some secret place in which he might lay it up.
The recess into which it had now been hauled was discovered a few days before. It struck Will as a very suitable place for mooring the vessel, though it cost him and the negro boy some hours of hard work to clear it of frogs and other old inhabitants. The water was only about two feet deep, so that there was little fear of encountering alligators; but it was swarming with electric eels, one of which gave Will a severe shock as he waded in with his vessel. He was very careful not to give the creatures another chance.
"Why weren't you here when I started this morning?" said Will as he made the hydroplane fast.
"Very sorry, señor," replied the boy, "but señor did not wish the place to be known. I was coming, as señor ordered, but I met Señor Machado, who walked by my side. What could I do? I walked round about, but Señor Machado kept with me a long time, and when he left me alone, and I came here, your excellency was gone."
"You did very well, José. Señor Machado is a friend of yours, eh?"
"No, señor, but very friendly."