"Hang it all! Listen to me; more singular things than that have been known, and though my head may be worth little, I confess to you that I have the weakness of attaching remarkable value to it; hence I warn you, that unless you have better security to offer, the affair is broken off." "That would be a pity." "I am well aware of that, but it is your fault, not mine; you should have taken your measures better before coming to me." "Then nothing can convince you of my good faith?" "Nothing." "Come, we must have an end of this!" the soldier exclaimed, impatiently. "I ask for nothing better." "It is clearly understood between us, Excellency, that you will give me five hundred ounces?" "If by your aid I carry off the conducta de plata; I promise it." "That is enough; I know that you never break your word." He then unbuttoned his uniform, drew out a bag hung round his neck by a steel chain, and offered it to the Captain. "Do you know what this is?" he asked him. "Certainly," the Jaguar replied, crossing himself fervently; "it is a relic." "Blessed by the Pope! As this attestation proves." "It is true." He took it from his neck, and laid it in the young man's hand, then crossing his right thumb over the left, he said, in a firm and marked voice-- "I, Gregorio Felpa, swear on this relic to accomplish faithfully all the clauses of the bargain I have just concluded with the noble Captain called the Jaguar: if I break this oath, I renounce from this day and for ever the place I hope for in Paradise, and devote myself to the eternal flames of hell. Now," he added, "keep that precious relic; you will restore it to me on my return." The Captain, without replying, immediately hung it round his own neck. Strange contradiction of the human heart, and inexplicable anomaly; these Indians, for the most part pagans, in spite of the baptism they have received, and who, while affecting to follow ostensibly the rules of the Catholic religion, secretly practise the rites of their worship, have a lively faith in relics and amulets; all wear them round their necks in little bags, and these perverse and dissolute men, to whom nothing is sacred, who laugh at the most noble feelings, whose life is passed in inventing roguery, and preparing acts of treachery, profess so great a respect for these relics, that there is no instance of an oath taken on one of them having ever been broken. Anyone who pleases may explain this extraordinary fact; we content ourselves with telling it. Before the oath taken by the soldier, the Jaguar's suspicions at once faded away to make room for the most perfect confidence. The conversation lost the stiff tone it had up to the present, the soldier sat down on a buffalo skull, and the three men, henceforth in good harmony, quietly discussed the best means to be employed to prevent a failure.