“He does not understand English, but I will ask him.”
Pedro replied that he thought we should be guided by the sailor, who had already helped us so much.
The sailor seemed pleased with the answer.
“Why, then, I’ll try and do my best for you, mates,” he said. “You see we are about ten miles away from your prison, and somewhere close upon two hundred miles from the nearest port where we are likely to fall in with any English ship. The Spaniards don’t encourage them to come openly into their ports with the high duties they clap on, though there’s a good deal of smuggling on the coast; and more than half the British manufactures used in the country are landed without paying a farthing of duty. I would rather stick to the river as long as we could; but then, you see, it’s the very place the Spaniards are likely to send to look for us. So I propose that we pull down some five or six miles further, where there are some rapids which we cannot pass, and then we will land on the south bank, and make our way over towards the country they call Chili, though it’s hot enough, to my mind, at times. We might manage, to be sure, to get across the mountains, and launch a canoe upon one of the streams which run into the river of the Amazons. It’s a long way, to be sure, but others have gone down the river; and I don’t see, if we can keep stout hearts in our bodies, why we shouldn’t. When one man has done a thing, I always think another may, if he set the right way about it.”
“A voyage down the river of the Amazons!” I exclaimed. “The very thing I should be delighted to accomplish. I do not care for the dangers or hardships we shall have to encounter. I say, let us try it by all means. I am sure Pedro will agree. We must first try and find my friend Manco, the Indian chief, if he should have escaped from his enemies.”
I then explained to the sailor who Manco was.
“That’s the spirit I like to see,” he answered. “We shall do, depend upon it. I’ve no great fancy for being caught by the Spaniards and clapped into prison; and they are certain to be looking for us all along the western coast. We shall have to go rather a roundabout way, but that can’t be helped. Now, from what I hear, the Indians have pretty well cleared the country of the white men to the south of this, so we shall have little to fear from the Spaniards; and as you say the Indians are your friends, if we fall in with them, it is to be hoped they will treat us well. We can’t expect, you know, to get through the world without running through a little danger now and then.”
I told the sailor I agreed with him.
“And now, my friend,” I said, “I have some more questions to ask you. I do not know your name, and I cannot guess how you came to find us out.”
“What does that matter, mate? I do not know yours; and to say the truth, I never heard of you till a few days ago, when I heard the people talking—for I know something of their lingo—of a young Englishman who was to be shot for siding with the Indians. Now, thinks I to myself, that is a very bad thing for the lad, and if I can lend him a hand, we’ll disappoint the Dons. It’s my belief, a seaman—as far as that matters, anybody—ought always to help a countryman in distress, or he’s not worth his salt.”