“Come hither, señoritos, and set your eyes on these flowers!”
Thus requested they comply, leading their horses nearer to the tree.
“Well?” exclaims Cypriano, “I see nothing in them; that is, nothing that strikes me as being strange.”
“But I do,” says Ludwig, whose father had given him some instruction in the science of botany. “I observe that the corollas are well nigh closed, which they should not be at this hour of the day, if the tree is in a healthy condition. It’s the üinay; I know it well. We have passed several on the way as we started this morning, but I noticed none with the flowers thus shrivelled up.”
“Stand still a while,” counsels Gaspar, “and watch them.”
They do as desired, and see what greatly surprises them. At least Cypriano is surprised; for the young Paraguayan, unlike his half-German cousin, unobservant of Nature generally, has never given a thought to any of its particular phenomena; and that now presented to his gaze is one of the strangest. For while they stand watching the üinay, its flowers continue to close their corollas, the petals assuming a shrunk, withered appearance.
The gaucho’s countenance seems to take its cue from them, growing graver as he stands contemplating the change.
“Por Dios!” he at length exclaims, “if that tree be speaking truth, and I never knew of the üinay telling lies, we’ll have a storm upon us within twenty minutes’ time; such a one as will sweep us out of our saddles, if we can’t get under shelter. Ay, sure it’s going to be either a temporal or tormenta! And this is not the where to meet it. Here we’d be smothered in a minute, if not blown up into the sky. Stay! I think I know of a place near by, where we may take refuge before it’s down upon us. Quick, muchachos! Mount, and let us away from here. A moment lost, and it may be too late; vamonos!”
Leaping back into their saddles, all three again go off in a gallop; no longer upon the Indian trail, but in a somewhat different direction, the gaucho guiding and leading.