“You certainly did lose your chance,” observed Jack, “for a steamer which I spoke came down about that time, and you might probably have got on board her.”
“I told you so, Gerald,” exclaimed Tom, “I was—”
“But it does not matter now,” answered Gerald, “all’s well that ends well.”
“You are right, but it might not have been so had we been shot by those fellows as we were swimming off to the Supplejack’s boat,” observed Tom. “Well, I suppose you want me to cut my yarn short. As soon as it was dark we lighted our fire, which we should have been puzzled to do, had not Gerald had some fusees in his pocket, which he carries, you will understand, to give a light to any one who wants to smoke a cigar.”
“I understand,” observed Jack, laughing. “You, of course, Mr Desmond, never dream of smoking one yourself?”
“Only occasionally, sir, and Tom and I had finished all I had when we were captured by the gauchos.”
“Our fires burned well,” continued Tom, “and we roasted our young capybara to perfection; we only wanted salt and pepper, and an onion or two to make it delicious. As it was, with the addition of a little brown bread we had remaining, we made a good meal, and slept like tops till daylight. One of us, you will understand, regularly kept watch on the river while the other searched for provisions, except when we wanted to catch another young capybara, when we had to assist each other. We captured the second in the same way we had the first, with our long wands and nooses; we also caught several birds after dark, roosting on the branches of the trees; we were afraid, however, to venture out as far as the plain above to look for partridges, lest we might have been seen by any of the country people or soldiers who might have been on their way to the cliff I spoke of; we found, indeed, that men were constantly on the watch for passing vessels, and we should to a certainty have been discovered.
“Our chief exploit was catching the big capybara, which we attempted when we had eaten nearly all her young ones. We were afraid if we took the last, that she might suspect that something was wrong and make off. We accordingly got up at night, when we thought that she would be asleep, and placed a couple of nooses at the mouth of her hole, securing the end to a part of the root of the tree which rose above the ground. We then went back to our cave, and roasted the last of the young ones we had caught. As usual, we kept watch by turns: we had become somewhat anxious at night, for we could not help thinking that the smell of our roast pig might attract some keen-scented jaguar to the spot, and I can tell you that the thought of being snatched up at any moment by one of those beasts made us keep our eyes about us, and prevented us from going to sleep. I know it did me, and I am pretty sure that Gerald was not more comfortable in his mind on the subject than I was.
“It was my morning watch, and as soon as daylight returned I called Gerald, and we crept carefully up to the capybara’s hole.
“We had not long to wait before we heard her barking, for strange to say, though she was like a pig she did not grunt. She was calling to her solitary young one to get up, I suppose. Presently we felt a pull on one of our lines, and directly afterwards the other was drawn taut. We gave each of them a jerk, and then springing forward with our sticks, we were just in time before the capybara drew back into her hole to give her a couple of stunning blows on the head. We quickly had her out, and a few more blows deprived her of life. It occurred to us that if we dragged her up to our cave, the track might lead any passer-by to it. We therefore fastened her legs together, and carried her on one of our sticks, the little one following, wondering, I