"Why do you ask that question?" answered the captain, kneeling down before him. "What does it matter to you? Answer me frankly." "If that can give you any pleasure, I am willing to do so, Malco. Two hours will be long enough." "Well, if I promise you to remain quiet where I am, without calling out, would you gag me?" "Hum!" said the captain; "A promise is a very vague thing, Malco, when it concerns life or death." "That is true, but if I made you that promise?" Diogo shook his head with an embarrassed air. "Come! Answer!" pursued Malco. "Well, no! I could not accept it," said Diogo. "There, I tell you plainly, it would be too dangerous." "Wait," cried Malco, as he prepared to fix the gag. Diogo stopped. "Well, now," pursued Malco, "if, instead of this promise, I were to give you my word of honour as a cavalheiro, what would you do?" "Hum," answered the other, "but would you give it me?" "Why do you ask that?" "Because you would keep it, and you do not wish to enter into an engagement with me." "So you believe my word?" "Certainly." "Well, do not gag me, Diogo; I give it you." "Come, you are jesting." "By no means; I give you my word of honour to remain as I am--not for two hours only, but for three--without stirring, and without offering a cry." "Indeed!" said the captain, looking at him full in the face; "Are you serious?" "Quite serious; is it agreed?" "It is agreed," answered Diogo, and he threw away the gag. Strange anomaly of character in certain men, and which is so often met with, especially among the Brazilian half-castes; with them their word is everything, nothing will induce them to break it. Diogo knew so well that he could trust to that word, that he accepted it without hesitation. "I leave you, Malco," said he to him; "do not distress yourself too much." "Go to the devil; but remember that I have promised to kill you." "Bah, bah!" answered the other; "You say that now because you are furious. I suppose you think, as you have not succeeded against me today, that you will be more fortunate another time." "I hope so," said the half-caste, gnashing his teeth. Diogo easily caught the horse, which was not very far off, and started off. As soon as the captain had reached the bank he abandoned the horse, entered the water, and commenced to swim. Although this river literally swarmed with alligators, the captain had not hesitated to enter it. He knew by experience that alligators rarely attack man. The only thing he feared was to be perceived by the Indian sentinels, who, without doubt, were in ambush in the neighbouring woods. But luck did not desert him in this last and desperate effort. Arrived at a short distance from the thicket he wished to reach, Diogo glided between two streams. For that matter, this precaution was, let us hasten to say, not necessary; it was not the river (on which they had nothing to fear) that the Guaycurus watched, but only the hill where their enemies were to be found.