“Then let us keep on going up,” said Diego, “and perhaps we can find a lookout to-morrow on the top of the mountains, and select a safer course.”
The advice was certainly good, and it was not difficult to follow, particularly as they fell in with no more villages. So they kept on, always climbing, and occasionally, now, gaining a sight of the stars; though the forest remained dense as far as they went.
How far they went they had no means of knowing; for even the time spent or the fatigue incurred was no criterion; for while they were quite certain that they must have been six hours on foot, they had wandered so much from a direct path that it was quite possible they might have gone but a very short distance; and they had been tired from the start.
As well as they could in the darkness, they selected a sheltered spot to sleep in, and laid themselves down to rest. They fortunately had no need to think of snakes or of other dangerous reptiles or beasts; for the only really unpleasant creatures on the islands were scorpions, centipedes, and tarantulas, which were not feared by the natives, and in consequence the voyagers also had learned to hold them in little fear.
In the shaded woods the morning sun had no opportunity to awaken the boys until they were ready to open their eyes, and so the day was well advanced before they roused themselves.
“Ah-h-h!” yawned Diego, comfortably, “I am ready for breakfast, aren’t you?”
“Sh-sh!” said Juan, and pointed through the trees.
Behind Diego, not more than a hundred yards distant, was an opening, a sort of level plateau on the mountain-side, and straggling along the side nearest the boys was a village of possibly two hundred huts. Under the shade of the trees nearest the huts were hammocks, in which the men lazily swung, while the women worked leisurely at their light tasks. Children played about everywhere.
Nowhere had the boys seen comelier or pleasanter-looking women; but nowhere had they seen more forbidding-looking men. Their foreheads sloped back abruptly from their eyebrows, and their faces were hideously streaked with paint. Moreover, they were taller and more muscular in appearance than the other Indians they had seen. At least the few men they saw moving about were; and altogether the boys were satisfied that the men, at least, looked the cannibals they were reputed to be.