The pretty lilies gradually disappeared, and the thatched cabins became more and more sparse, when from one of the latter, at a hundred paces from the caravan, issued a human figure. The man struck an attitude in the pathway of the travelers, his carbine on his shoulder, his fist on his hip and his nose saucily turned up in the air. Neither his Metamora-like posture nor his dress inspired confidence.
"He is evidently waiting for us," remarked Colonel Perez, an heroic yet prudent personage: "fortunately, it is broad day. I would not grant an interview to such a salteador (brigand) alone at night and in a desert."
The salteador wore a low broad felt, on whose ample brim the rain and sun had sketched a variety of vague designs. A gray sack buttoned to the throat and confined by a leathern belt, and trowsers of the same stuffed into his long coarse woolen stockings, completed his costume. He was shod, like an Indian, in ojotas, or sandals cut out of raw leather and laced to his legs with thongs. Two ox-horns hanging at his side contained his ammunition, and a light haversack was slung over his back. This mozo, who at a distance would have passed for a man of forty, appeared on examination to be under twenty-two years of age. It was likewise observable on a nearer view that his skin was brown and clear like a chestnut, and that his lively eye, perfect teeth and air of decision were calculated to please an Indian girl of his vicinity. To complete his rehabilitation in the eyes of the party, his introductory address was delivered with the grace of a Spanish cavalier.
"The gentlemen," said he, gracefully getting rid of his superabundant hat, "will voluntarily excuse me for having waited so long with my respects and offers of service. I should have gone to meet them at Marcapata, but my uncle the gobernador forbade me to do so for fear of displeasing the priest. Gentlemen, I am Juan the nephew of Aragon. It is by the advice of my uncle that I have come to place myself in your way, and ask if you will admit me to your company as mozo-assistant and interpreter."
The colonel, whose antipathy to the salteador did not yield on a closer acquaintance, roughly asked the youth what he meant by his assurance. Mr. Marcoy, however, was disposed to temporize.
"If you are Juan the nephew of Aragon," said he, "you must have already learned from your uncle that we have engaged an interpreter, Pepe Garcia of Chile-Chile."
"Precisely what he told me, señor," replied the young man; "but, for my part, I thought that if one interpreter would be useful to these gentlemen on their journey, two interpreters would be a good deal better, on account of the fact that we walk better with two legs than with one: that is the reason I have intercepted you, gentlemen."
This opinion made everybody laugh, and as Juan considered it his privilege to laugh five times louder than any one, a quasi engagement resulted from this sudden harmony of temper. Colonel Perez shrugged his shoulders: Marcoy, as literary man, took down the name of the new-comer. The nephew of Aragon was so delighted that he gave vent to a little cry of pleasure, at the same time cutting a pirouette. This harmless caper allowed the party to detect; tied to his haversack, the local banjo, or charango, an instrument which the Paganinis of the country make for themselves out of half a calabash and the unfeeling bowels of the cat.
