I shivered, and stared back into his dull eyes.
“Ah! I thought not,” he continued, with a short laugh. “It is not the first telegram they have sent this trip from Rio, you know; but I cannot find the fellow anywhere aboard. Do you wonder? How can I be expected to distinguish an American from a Brazilian? Bah! I am not of the police.”
I began to breathe again. The conductor nudged my ribs with his elbow.
“These police will perhaps be at the station. Cuyaba is the next stop. But we will slow up, presently, at a curve near the edge of the forest. Were I the American, and aboard this train, I would get out there, and wait among the trees in the forest until Dom Miguel’s red cart comes along. But, ai de mim, the American is not here! Eh? Thank God for it! But I must leave, senhor. Good day to you.”
He bustled away, and at once I seized my traveling-bag and slipped out to the back platform. We slowed up at the curve a moment later, and I sprang to the ground and entered the shade of a group of trees that marked the edge of the little forest.
And there I sat upon a fallen tree-trunk for two weary hours, wondering what would happen next, and wishing with all my heart I had never ventured into this intrigue-ridden country. But at the end of that time I heard the rattle of a wagon and the regular beat of a horse’s feet.
Peering from my refuge I discerned a red cart slowly approaching over the road that wound between the railway track and the forest. It was driven by a sleepy Brazilian boy in a loose white blouse and a wide straw hat.
As he arrived opposite me I stepped out and hailed him.
“Are you from Dom Miguel de Pintra?” I asked.
He nodded.