omise being made that their lives should be
spared.

Banditti do not usually regard promises as binding. It would be
surprising if they did. Fan made the survivors lie down on their faces,
and was about to plunder the mules, when he changed his mind, and shot
all the rest of the convoy in cold blood, except the last, who, seeing
the fate that awaited him, leaped over a precipice, rolled down a steep
slope many hundred feet deep, and, strange to say, escaped with his
life. He then procured a dozen or two well-armed men, and returned to
the scene of the robbery, but found that the robbers had flown with as
much silver as they could carry, the remainder being scattered about on
the road.

These miscreants were afterwards captured, but, owing to disputes
between the Peruvian and the Chilian Governments, the former of whom had
hold of, while the latter claimed, the robbers, they all escaped their
merited punishment, and were set at large.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

THICK WOODS, HEAT, CHANGE OF SCENE, AND SAVAGES.

We must change the scene now, and transport our reader to one of those
numerous streams which convey the surplus waters of the Andes to the
warmer regions of Bolivia, and thence, through many a wild, luxuriant
wilderness and jungle, to the Parana river, by which they ultimately
find their way to the sea.

It was approaching the afternoon of a very sultry day when Lawrence
awoke from his midday siesta under an algaroba-tree, and slowly opened
his eyes. The first object they rested upon was the brown little face
of Manuela, reposing on a pillow formed of leopard skin. In those
regions it was the practice, when convenient, to sling a network hammock
between two trees, and enjoy one's siesta in that. The Indian girl lay
in her hammock, with her eyes shut, and her little mouth open,--not
undignifiedly open, but just sufficiently so to permit of one seeing
something of the teeth and tongue inside.

Fascinated apparently by the sight, a mite of a blue-bird with a golden
head sat on the edge of the hammock close to the little mouth, and
looked in. Evidently it was a bird of an inquiring disposition, for,
having gazed for a considerable time with one eye, it turned its head,
and gazed a longer time with the other. Quashy lay close to Lawrence,
with his back towards him. The latter, observing that the cheek of the
former was more lumpy and prominent than usual, raised himself on one
elbow to look at him, and fou