By the time a cup of the flask’s contents was administered to Manuela, Mariquita and Susan were kneeling beside her, and the rest were standing round.
“A splendid leap!—aw—couldn’t have been much better done if—aw—it had been an English hunter,” remarked the sportsman in an undertone to his friend. “But, I say, don’t it strike you that the colonel is uncommonly—aw—sweet on that little Indian girl.”
“She’s no more an Indian girl than you are,” replied his friend, with a laugh.
“Aw—you don’t say so?” returned the sportsman, with a slight elevation of his eyebrows.
“Let us go,” said Manuela, rising; “I am much better, only a little shaken by such a leap. But—but I should like another—”
“Yes, to be sure, another horse,” interrupted the colonel; “who will exchange?—a quiet one, of course.”
“Here you is, kurnel,” said Quashy, with a beaming countenance, as he led forward his horse. “Quiet as a lamb, ’cept when you aggrawates him. Nebber goes no faster dan you wants him to,—sometimes not so fast! an’ wouldn’t run away even if you was to ax him on your knees.”
“After such recommendation,” said the colonel, turning to Manuela, “I suppose you will accept of this steed.”
The Inca princess accepted it with a beam of gratitude to Quashy, who thereupon mounted the runaway horse, and in a few minutes the whole cavalcade was sweeping over the plain as swiftly as ever.
Afternoon brought them to a solitary Gaucho hut. They came first upon the corral rather suddenly, for it was concealed in a hollow. It was an enclosure of strong rough posts stuck into the ground, on many of which were perched a number of gorged vultures and hawks.