they were talking thus, and slowly descending one of the numerous
richly-wooded, though rugged, paths which traverse the lower slopes of
the Andes, they encountered a party of horsemen from the Pampas. They
were well-armed, and from their looks might have been another troop of
banditti, coming like human vultures from afar to swoop down on the
carcass of the unfortunate town.

To have shown the slightest hesitancy or fear--supposing them to have
been what they looked--would have been to invite attack, but, as the
reader knows, our travellers were not the men to betray themselves thus.
Before starting, they had carefully examined their weapons, and had
bestowed them about their persons somewhat ostentatiously. Pedro had
even caused Manuela to stick a brace of small pistols and a large knife
in her belt; and, as Indian women are sometimes known to be capable of
defending themselves as vigorously as men, she was by no means a cipher
in the effective strength of the party.

With a dignified yet free-and-easy air that would have done credit to a
Spanish Don of the olden time, Pedro saluted the party as he rode past.
His aspect, and the quiet, self-possessed air of the huge Englishman,
with the singularity of his cudgel, coupled with the look of graceful
decision about the Indian maiden, and the blunt bull-doggedness of the
square negro, were sufficient to ensure a polite response, not only from
that party, but from several other bands of the same stamp that were met
with during the day.

Diverging from the main road in order to avoid these bands, they
followed a track well-known to the guide. Towards the afternoon, from
the top of a rising ground, they descried a solitary foot traveller
wending his way wearily up the hill.

He was a man of middle age, and powerfully-built, but walked with such
evident difficulty that it seemed as if he were either ill or exhausted.
Pedro eyed him with considerable suspicion as he approached. In
passing, he begged for assistance. As he spoke in French, Lawrence,
whose sympathies, like those of Quashy, were easily roused, asked in
that tongue what was the matter with him.

He had been robbed, he said, by that villainous bandit, Conrad of the
Mountains, or some one extremely like him, and had been nearly killed by
him. He was on his way to San Ambrosio, where his wife and family
dwelt, having heard that it had been greatly damaged, if not destroyed,
by an earthquake.

"It has been