Though a South American, Pedro, as a seaman, had been long unused to the saddle. He felt as if all his bones had been mangled; wearily he threw the bridle over the stump of a broken tree, and stretched himself on the grass, while his nag drank of the lagune.
On the whole, Pedro was greatly pleased with himself. He had Don Salvador's bill for 1,000 dollars; he had ten dollars yet remaining of the plunder from the brigantine, and he had twenty pistoles and four dollars just taken from Fernandez. Then there was Hawkshaw's horse, which, with its furniture, he valued at 500 more.
"_Vamas!_" thought he; "at this rate I shall soon realise a fortune."
While Pedro was thus casting up this little sum, gained by his industry, he did not perceive a dark, lithe, and athletic young fellow, who had been lurking among the luxuriant weeds, and who now stole stealthily towards him, with a knife glittering in his hand; and little thought Pedro that the clink of his ill-gotten pistoles had been overheard.
This stealthy personage wore a red baize shirt, a yellow poncho cloak, or _surreppa_, an old-fashioned Spanish hat, much broken and bruised, and long brown leather leggings.
He had a calf-skin girdle, fastened to which by a thong the sheath of his knife was dangling, beside an Indian bota, or drinking-flask.
Gliding like a serpent or eel, he was close to Pedro, ere a sound made the latter turn sharply, with instinctive caution.
Each uttered an imprecation--an expletive not to be found in Johnson or Walker--there was a gleam of the lurker's knife, and a flash of Pedro's pistol, as they closed suddenly, and, without harming each other, suddenly drew back.
Such were the exclamations that escaped the lips of these worthies, just in time to prevent a little culpable fratricide.
The brothers now exchanged an account of their adventures since they had scuttled the boat of the brigantine at the harbour of the Almendral, and separated, each to shift for himself.
Those of Zuares were very simple, being merely the breaking of all the commandments, and spending his dollars in such a fashion that the atmosphere of Valparaiso became too hot for his comfort, and he was now travelling inland, to avoid the chance of being legally garotted in a city where there was no Sangrado equalling our friend Heriot in a skill calculated to baffle even Calcraft.