"Well, senor, if you think so, there is no more to be said."

 

"I am not going to be made a trouble of," Maria said. "I shall go down on

foot like the rest of you. I will take some other clothes with me, so that

when you all come back for the mules I can change into them."

 

"Perhaps that would be the best plan," Harry agreed. "Now I will go back

and take Bertie's place. It is my turn to be on watch, and he will be

wanting to hear the news."

 

"Well, Harry, is it all right?" Bertie asked as he heard his brother

coming up to him.

 

"It couldn't be better! There are sixty or seventy of them in a sort of

little ravine three hundred yards away, on the left-hand side of the

river. They don't seem to be keeping guard at all, and if they are not

more careful to-morrow night we shall take them completely by surprise. We

are going to saddle all the mules directly it gets too dark for any of the

fellows on the hills to see us, then we must set to work and pull down

enough of the barricade here to allow them to pass. We ourselves, when we

go down, will cross at that shallow place above here, and go down the

river at that side, otherwise we sha'n't be able to cross it except at

some distance beyond the other end of the torrent. Of course the mules

must go down this side, as we shall want to turn to the right when we get

off. We shall make our attack about ten o'clock."

 

Bertie went off, and three hours later Dias relieved Harry. As soon as it

was light the next morning Bertie and Jose set to work to fill the cases--

there were a hundred squibs and fifty large crackers.

 

Donna Maria after breakfast went out and returned with a number of

flexible sticks of about half an inch in diameter; these she carried into

her tent, where she shut herself up for the forenoon. When, at one

o'clock, she came out with the result of her work, it resembled a chair

without legs and with a back about a foot wide and three feet high.

 

"What in the world have you got there, Donna Maria?" Bertie asked.

 

"Don't you know?"

 

"No, I have never seen a thing like it before."

 

"This is the thing the porters use for carrying weights, and sometimes

people, over the Cordilleras. You see that strap near the top goes round

the man's forehead, and when there is a weight in the chair these other

straps pass over his shoulders and under his arms, and then round whatever

is on the seat."

 

"But what is going to be on the seat?"

 

"I am," she laughed. "Dias is so overbearing. It had all been arranged

nicely, as you know; and then when he spoke to me afterwards he said, 'The

first thing to-morrow morning, Maria, you will set to work to make a

porter's chair, and I shall carry you down the stream. No words about it,

but do as you are told.' Generally Dias lets me have my own way, senor,

but when he talks like that, I know that it is useless to argue with him.

And perhaps it is best after all, for, as he said to me afterwards, it is

a nasty place for men to get along, but for a woman, with her petticoats

dragging and trailing round her, it would be almost impossible for her to

keep her footing."

 

"Well, I thought the same thing myself when we were talking about it

yesterday," Bertie said. "Of course I did not say anything, but I am sure

Dias is right. I found it very hard work to keep my footing, and I really

don't believe that I could have done it if I had been dressed as a woman.

And Dias can carry you like that?"

 

"Carry me, senor! he could carry three times that weight. He has cut

himself a staff seven or eight feet long this morning to steady himself,

but I don't think there was any need for it. Why, it is a common thing for

people to be carried over the Cordilleras so, and Dias is stronger a great

deal than many of the men who do it. As he said, if I had been going

through on foot you would all have been bothering about me. And it is not

as if two people could go abreast, and one help the other. There is often

only room between the rocks for one to pass through, and it is just there

where the rush of the water is strongest."

 

 

 

 

CUSCO PERU IX

 

THE SIGNAL STAR

 

 

During the afternoon Dias, who had been keeping a careful look-out at the

cliffs, said to Harry: "I think, senor, that the savages are leaving the

hills. An hour ago I saw a man walking along where we generally see them;

he was going straight along as if for some fixed purpose, and I thought at

once that he might be bringing them some message from the people below us.

I lost sight of him after a bit, but presently I could make out some men

moving in the other direction. They were keeping back from the edge, but I

several times caught sight of their heads against the sky-line when there

happened to be some little irregularity in the ground. They were not

running, but seemed to me to be going at a steady pace. Since then I have

been watching carefully, and have seen no one on the other side. I think