room. Here, long
after their light was put out, they watched the scene going on in the
apartment they had just left, whose interior, illuminated by a candle
and a lingering fire, was perfectly visible through the partition of
bamboo. The dark-skinned girls, on their knees in a corner, were
gathering together the shirts and stockings destined for the parental
traveling-bag. Garcia, for his part, was occupied in cleaning with a bit
of rag a portentous, long-barreled carbine, apparently dating back to
the time of Pizarro, which he had been exhibiting during the day as his
hunting rifle, and which he intended to carry along with him.

The sleep under the thatched roof of Pepe Garcia, though somewhat less
sound than that of the Three Magi in their tomb at Cologne, lasted until
a ray of the morning sun had penetrated the open-work walls of the hut.
The colonel rapidly dressed himself, and aroused the others. A
disquieting silence reigned around the modest mansions of Chile-Chile.
The interpreter was away, Juan of Aragon was away, the muleteers had
returned, according to instructions received over-night, to Marcapata
with the animals, and the peons were found dead-drunk behind the mud
wall of the last house in the village.

After three hours of impatient waiting there appeared--not Garcia and
Aragon, whose absence was inexplicable, but--the faithful Bolivian
bark-hunters in a body. Not caring to stupefy themselves with the peons,
they had gone out for a reconnoissance in the environs. Contemplating
the nodding forms of their comrades, they now let out the discouraging
fact that these tame Indians, madly afraid of their wild brothers the
Chunchos, had been fortifying themselves steadily with brandy and chicha
all the way from Marcapata. Disgusted and helpless, Perez and the
examinador betook themselves to reading tattered newspapers issued at
Lima a month before, and Marcoy to his note-book. Suddenly a ferocious
wild-beast cry was heard coming from the woods, and while the Indian
porters tried to run away, and the white men looked at each other with
apprehension, Pepe Garcia and Aragon appeared in the distance. Their
arms were interlaced in a brother-like manner, they were poising
themselves with much care on their legs, and they were drunk. Well had
the elder interpreter said that he was not jealous of Aragon. They
rolled forward toward the party, repeating their outrageous duet, whose
reception by the staring peons appeared