“The skins of the jaguars!” cried he; “are you going to let them be lost? They are worth twenty dollars, Costal!”
“Well, if they are,” replied the Indian, “swim after and secure them. I have no time to spare,” added he, as he pulled Lantejas through the bottom of the hammock, and lowered him down into the canoe.
“Dios me libre!” responded Clara; “I shall do nothing of the kind. Who knows whether the life’s quite out of them yet? They may go to the devil for me! Heigh! Costal! paddle this way, and take me in. I have no desire to go under those tamarinds—laced as they are by half a mile of rattlesnakes.”
“Get in gently, then!” said Costal, directing the canoe towards the negro. “Gently, or you may capsize us a second time.”
“Jesus God!” exclaimed Don Cornelio, who now for the first time had found the power of speech; “Jesus God!” he repeated, seeing himself, not without some apprehension, between two strange beings—the one red, the other black—both dripping with water, and their hair covered with the yellow scum of the waves!
“Eh! Señor student,” rejoined Clara, in a good-humoured way, “is that all the thanks you give us for the service we have done you?”
“Pardon me, gentlemen,” stammered out Don Cornelio; “I was dreadfully frightened. I have every reason to be thankful to you.”
And, his confidence now restored, the student expressed, in fit terms, his warm gratitude; and finished his speech by congratulating the Indian on his escape from the dangers he had encountered.
“By my faith! it is true enough,” rejoined Costal, “I have run some little danger. I was all over of a sweat; and this cursed water coming down from the mountains as cold as ice—Carrambo! I shouldn’t wonder if I should get a bad cold from the ducking.”
The student listened with astonishment to this unexpected declaration. The man whose fearful intrepidity he had just witnessed to be thinking only of the risk he ran of getting a cold!