In a month from that time the two Trevannions might have been seen upon a ship, steering westward from the Land's End, and six months later both disembarked upon the beach of Callao,—en route first for Lima, thence up the mountains, to the sterile snow-crested mountains, that tower above the treasures of Cerro Pasco,—vainly guarded within the bosom of adamantine rocks.
CHAPTER II.
THE BROTHERS ABROAD.
This book is not intended as a history of the brothers Ralph and Richard Trevannion. If it were so, a gap of some fifteen years—after the date of their arrival at Cerro Pasco—would have to be filled up. I decline to speak of this interval of their lives, simply because the details might not have any remarkable interest for those before whom they would be laid.
Suffice it to say, that Richard, the younger, soon became wearied of a miner's life; and, parting with his brother, he crossed the Cordilleras, and descended into the great Amazonian forest,—the “montaña,” as it is called by the Spanish inhabitants of the Andes. Thence, in company with a party of Portuguese traders, he kept on down the river Amazon, trading along its banks, and upon some of its tributary streams; and finally established himself as a merchant at its mouth, in the thriving “city” of Gran Pará.
Richard was not unsocial in his habits; and soon became the husband of a fair-haired wife,—the daughter of a countryman who, like himself, had established commercial relations at Pará. In a few years after, several sweet children called him “father,”—only two of whom survived to prattle in his ears this endearing appellation, alas! no longer to be pronounced in the presence of their mother.
Fifteen years after leaving the Land's End, Richard Trevannion, still under thirty-five years of age, was a widower, with two children,—respected wherever known, prosperous in pecuniary affairs,—rich enough to return home, and spend the remainder of his days in that state so much desired by the Sybarite Roman poet,—“otium cum dignitate.”
Did he remember the vow mutually made between him and his brother, that, having enough money, they would one day go back to Cornwall, and recover the ancestral estate? He did remember it. He longed to accomplish this design. He only awaited his brother's answer to a communication he had made to him on this very subject.
He had no doubt that Ralph's desire would be in unison with his own,—that his brother would soon join him, and then both would return to their native land,—perhaps to dwell again under the same roof that had sheltered them as children.
The history of the elder brother during this period of fifteen years, if less eventful, was not less distinguished by success. By steadily following the pursuit which had first attracted him to Peru, he succeeded in becoming a man of considerable means,—independent, if not wealthy.