The specimens found by the examinador were carefully wrapped in blankets, and the march was resumed. After a slippery descent of the side of Huaynapata and the passage of a considerable number of babbling streams—each of which gave new occasion for the colonel to show his ingenuity in getting over dry shod, and so sparing his threatening rheumatism—the cry of "Sausipata!" was uttered by Pepe Garcia. Two neat mud cabins, each provided with a door furnished with the unusual luxury of a wooden latch, marked the plantation of Sausipata. The situation was level, and within the enclosing walls of the forest could be seen a plantation of bananas, a field of sugar-cane, with groves of coffee, orange-orchards and gardens of sweet potato and pineapple. The white visitors could not refrain from an exclamation of surprise at the neatness and civilization of such an Eden in the desert. At this point, Juan of Aragon, who had been going on ahead, turned around with an air of splendid welcome, and explained that the farm belonged to his uncle, the gobernador of Marcapata, who prayed them to make themselves at home. Introducing his guests into the largest of the houses, Juan presented them with some fine ripe fruit which he culled from the garden. Colonel Perez, who never lost occasion to give a sly stab to the mozo, asked, as he peeled a banana, if he was duly authorized to dispose so readily of the property of his uncle: the youth, without losing a particle of his magnificent adolescent courtesy, replied that as nephew and direct heir of the governor of Marcapata it was a right which he exercised in anticipation of inheritance; and that just as Pepe Garcia, the interpreter-in-chief, had regaled the party in his residence, he, Juan of Aragon, proposed to do in the family grange of Sausipata.
Meantime, the examinador, who had pushed forward with his men, returned with a couple more specimens of quinquina, which they had discovered close by in clambering amongst the forest. Neither had flowers, but the one was recognizable by its flat leaf as the species called by the Indians ichu-cascarilla, from the grain ichu amongst which it is usually found at the base of the Cordilleras; and the other, from its fruit-capsules two inches in length, as the Cinchona acutifolia of Ruiz and Pavon. To moderate the pleasures of this discovery, the examinador came up leaning upon the shoulder of his principal assistant, Eusebio, complaining of a frightful headache, and a weakness so extreme that he could not put one foot before the other.
The sudden illness of their botanist-in-chief cast a gloom upon the party, and utterly spoiled the festive intentions of young Aragon. Lorenzo was put to bed, from which retreat, at midnight, his fearful groans summoned the colonel to his side. The latter found him tossing and murmuring, but incapable of uttering a word. His faithful Eusebio, at the head of the bed, answered for him. The honest fellow feared lest his master might have caught again a touch of the old fever which had formerly attacked him in searching for cascarillas in the environs of Tipoani in Bolivia. These symptoms, recurring in the lower valleys of the Cconi, would make it impossible for the brave explorer safely to continue with the party. As the mestizo propounded this inconvenient theory, a new burst of groans from the examinador seemed to confirm it. The grave news brought all the party to the sick bed. Colonel Perez, whom the touching comparison of wives made in the hammocks of Morayaca had sensibly attached to Lorenzo, endeavored to feel his pulse; but the patient, drawing in his hand by a peevish movement, only rolled himself more tightly in his blanket, and increased his groans to roars. Presently, exhausted by so much agony, he fell into a slumber.
In the morning the examinador, in a dolorous voice, announced that he should be obliged to return to Cuzco. This resolution might have seemed the obstinate delirium of the fever but for the mournful and pathetic calmness of the victim. Eusebio, he said, should return with him as far as Chile-Chile, where a conveyance could be had; and he himself would give such explicit instructions to the cascarilleros that nothing would be lost by his absence to the purposes of the expedition. Yielding to pity and friendship, the colonel gave in his adhesion to the plan, and even proposed his own hammock as a sort of palanquin, and the loan of a pair of the peons for bearers. They could return with Eusebio to Sausipata, where the party would be obliged to wait for the three. After sketching out his plan, Colonel Perez looked for approval to Mr. Marcoy, and received an affirmative nod. The proposition seemed so agreeable to the sick man that already an alleviation of his misery appeared to be superinduced. He even smiled intelligently as he rolled into the hammock. In a very short time he made a sort of theatrical exit, borne in the hammock like an invalid princess, and fanned with a palm branch out of the garden by the faithful Eusebio.
"Poor devil!" said Perez as the mournful procession departed: "who knows if he will ever see his dear wife at Sorata, or if he will even live to reach Chile-Chile?"
"Do you really think him in any such danger?" asked the more suspicious Marcoy.
"Danger! Did you not see his miserable appearance as he left us?"
"I saw an appearance far from miserable, and therefore I am convinced that the man is no more sick than you or I."
On hearing such a heartless heresy the colonel stepped back from his comrade with a shocked expression, and asked what had given him such an idea.
"A number of things, of which I need only mention the principal. In the first place, the man's sickness falling on him like a thunder-clap; next, his haste in catching back his hand when you tried to feel his pulse; and then his smile, at once happy and mischievous, when you offered him the peons and he found his stratagem succeeding beyond his hopes."