He spoke encouragingly to them, but obtained no answer; the Indians only paddled the faster, till their panic began to communicate itself to him; for it is always the unknown that is most terrifying. Two minutes passed, and they did not abate their speed or answer the questions put to them. Surely it could not be anything so very awful, for, only ten minutes before, a schooner-rigged vessel had overtaken them on its way up the river; whatever the peril was, she seemed to have escaped it. Mansfield had known what danger was, for he had worked like a hero among the poor of South London during the cholera outbreak of five years before; but, when the third minute had passed, he found that the suspense was becoming unbearable. A minute is a short time, but those who have passed through great danger or uncertainty know that it can sometimes seem like a week. "Well; now what was it?" he asked, breaking into a laugh as the men, uttering exclamations of relief, rested on their paddles and wiped their brows. "Hornets!" "_Hornets?_" "You laugh, Señor. God help us if they had followed us. Did you not hear their murmurings? Some fiend-begotten monkey had disturbed their nest; 'tis to be hoped he has got his reward. Two of my brothers were stung to death last year in less than a minute by a swarm of them; and there is a man of our tribe who is stone-blind through them." * * * * * Asuncion is, to-day, a town of only forty-five thousand inhabitants, and had not then half that number. With the exception of W. P. Robertson and a few other bold traders, Charles Mansfield was probably the only Englishman who had then set foot inside it. He made it his head-quarters for the next two and a half months, and, during that time, made various excursions into the Gran Chaco. On one occasion he joined a party of Indians who were going out there deer-hunting; and, though there was nothing specially new to him in their methods, he was enabled to examine the country under favourable circumstances. No doubt there was something in the report of its inhabitants being dangerous; for the men with him were hardy, fearless fellows, well used to bearing arms; and even these would not attempt to reach the more distant of the inhabited regions.