"Aye," I nodded. "A very masterful man, hale and florid and of a full habit."
"Nay, the only Englishman ever I see in Nombre was old and bent wi' white hair, and went wi' a limp, so it can't be him."
"No!" said I, frowning. "No!" After this, small chance had we for talk by reason of the difficulty of our going, yet remembering all he had told, I had enough to think on, God knows.
We had now reached a broken, mountainous country very trying and perilous, what with torrents that foamed athwart our way, jagged boulders, shifting stones and the like, yet John strode on untiring; but as for me, what with all this, the heat of sun and the burden I carried, my breath began to labour painfully. The first thing I tossed away was my gun that fell, ringing and clattering, down the precipitous rocks below, and the next was my pack and thereafter my hatchet and pistols, so that by the time we reached the top of the ascent all I had to encumber me was my sword, and this I kept, since it was light and seemingly a good blade.
"Master," said John, with a flourish of his ragged arm, "here's freedom—here's God. A land o' milk and honey given over to devils—curse all Spanishers, say I!"
Now looking around me I stood mute in wonder, for from this height I might behold a vast stretch of country, towering mountains, deep, shady valleys, impenetrable woods, rushing rivers, wide-stretching plains and far beyond a vague haze that I knew was the sea.
"And yonder, master," said John, pointing with his blowpipe, "yonder lieth Nombre, though ye can't see it, the which we shall reach ere nightfall, wherefore it behoveth me to look to my artillery."
So saying, he squatted down upon his hams and from his rags produced a small gourd carefully wrapped about with leaves; unwinding these, I saw the gourd to contain a sticky, blackish substance.
"Aha!" said John, viewing this with gloating eyes. "Snake poison is mother's milk to this, master. Here's enough good stuff to make pocky corpses o' every cursed Spanisher in Nombre ere sunset. Here's that might end the sufferings o' the poor Indians, the hangings, burnings and mutilations. I've seen an Indian cut up alive to feed to the dogs afore now—but here's a cure for croolty, master!"
While speaking, he had laid on the ground before him some dozen or so little darts no longer than my finger, each armed with a needle-like point and feathered with a wad of silky fibres; the point of each of these darts he dipped into the poison one after the other and laid them in the sun to dry, which done he wrapped up the little gourd mighty carefully and thrust it back among his rags. And in a while, the poison on the darts or arrows being dried to his satisfaction, he took forth a small leathern quiver of native make and setting the missiles therein, shut down the lid securely and sprang to his feet.