Don Cornelio could not make out what there was to laugh at in a spectacle that for two mortal hours—ever since daybreak—had been causing him the extreme of fear; but, without saying a word, he waited for the explanation of this ill-timed hilarity.
“Let us get a little farther off!” stammered the negro; “we can deliberate better what we should do.”
“What we should do!” cried Costal, now speaking seriously; “it needs no deliberation to tell that.”
“Quite true,” assented Clara, “it does not. Of course we should push off a little; and the sooner we do it the better.”
“Bah!” exclaimed Costal, “that’s not what I meant;” as he spoke coolly laying his paddle in the bottom of the canoe, and taking up his carbine.
“But what are you going to do?” anxiously asked Clara.
“Por Dios! to shoot one of the jaguars; what else? You shall see presently. Keep yourself quiet, Señor student,” he continued, speaking to Don Cornelio, who still lay crouched up within the hammock, and who, from very fear, could neither speak nor move.
At this moment one of the jaguars uttered a growl that caused the blood to run cold through the veins of Clara. At the same time the fierce creature was seen tearing the bark from the tamarind with his curving claws; while, with mouth agape, and teeth set, as if in menace, he fixed his fiery eyes upon Costal, who was nearest to him. His angry glance had no terrors for the tigrero, who, gazing firmly back upon the fierce brute, appeared to subdue him by some power of fascination.
Costal now raised the carbine to his shoulder, took deliberate aim, and fired. Almost simultaneously with the report, the huge animal came tumbling down from the tree, and fell with a dull, dead plash upon the water. It was the male.
“Quick, Clara!” cried the Indian. “A stroke of the paddle—quick, or we shall have the other upon us!”