“To do that, cara mia, would require another Abbé Balthazar and sixty years of life. And to what end? Sooner or later our work would be destroyed as his has been, even if we were allowed to begin it. The volcano may be active for ages. We must go.”
“Whither?”
“Back to the world, that in new scenes and occupation we may perchance forget this crowning calamity.”
“It is something to have been happy so long.”
“It is much; it is almost everything. Whatever the future may have in store for us, darling, nothing can deprive us of the sunny memories of the past, and the happiness we have enjoyed at Quipai.”
“True, and if this misfortune were not so terrible—But God knows best. It ill becomes me, who never knew sorrow before, to repine.—Yes, let us go. But how?”
“By sea. I fear you would never survive the hazards and hardships of a journey over the Cordillera, and dearly as I love you—because I love you—I would rather have you die than be captured by Indians and made the wife of some savage cacique. Yes, we must go by sea, in the sloop built by these two castaways. Yet, even in that there will be a serious risk; for if they suspect I have the diamonds in my possession—and I am afraid the suspicion is inevitable—they will probably—”
“What?”
“Try to murder us.”
“Murder us! For the diamonds?”