On hearing such a heartless heresy the colonel stepped back from his comrade with a shocked expression, and asked what had given him such an idea. "A number of things, of which I need only mention the principal. In the first place, the man's sickness falling on him like a thunder-clap; next, his haste in catching back his hand when you tried to feel his pulse; and then his smile, at once happy and mischievous, when you offered him the peons and he found his stratagem succeeding beyond his hopes." "Why, now, to think of it!" said the colonel sadly; "but what could have been his motive?" "This gentleman is too delicate to sustain our kind of life," suggested Marcoy. "He is tired of skinning his hands and legs in our service, and eating peccary, monkey and snails as we do. His Bolivians are perhaps quite as useful for our service, and while he is rioting at Cuzco we may be enriching ourselves with cinchonas." In effect, on the return of the peons ten days after, the examinador was reported to have got quit of his fever shortly after leaving Sausipata, and to have borne the journey to Chile-Chile remarkably well. He charged his men to take back his compliments and the regrets he felt, at not being able to keep with the company. Nothing detained the band longer at Sausipata. The ten days of hunting, botanizing, butterfly-catching and sketching had been an agreeable relief, and young Aragon had assumed, with sufficient grace, the task of attentive host and first player on the charango. The returning porters had scarcely enjoyed two hours of repose when the caravan took up its march once more. As usual, the interpreters assumed the head of the command: the Indians followed pellmell. Observing that some of them lingered behind, Mr. Marcoy had the curiosity to return on his steps. What was his surprise to find these honest fellows running furiously through the farm, and devastating with all their might those plantations which were the pride and the hope of the nephew of Aragon! They had already laid low several cocoa groves, torn up the sugar-canes, broken down the bananas, and sliced off the green pineapples. Indignant at such vandalism, Marcoy caught the first offender by the plaited tails at the back of the neck. "What are you doing?" he cried. "I am neither crazy nor drunk, Taytachay" (dear little father), calmly explained the peon with his placid smile. "But my fellows and I don't want to be sent any more to work at Sausipata." As the white man regarded him with stupefaction, "Thou art strange here," pursued the Indian, "and canst know nothing about us. Promise not to tell Aragon, and I will make thee wise." "Why Aragon more than anybody else?" asked Marcoy. "Because Senor Aragon is nephew to Don Rebollido, the governor, and Sausipata belongs to Rebollido; and if he were to learn what we have done, we should be flogged and sent to prison to rot."