“Then I may tell you at once,” Stephen said, “that I am an Englishman. I am one of the officers of the English admiral who commands the fleet that has destroyed their war-ships and is blockading their towns. I was wrecked on the Peruvian coast and thrown into prison. They were about to hand me over to the Inquisition as a heretic when I escaped, so you can understand the danger that I should run in passing through any of their towns. I speak, as you hear, the Chilian dialect, therefore I would be detected as a stranger at once, and as I could give no satisfactory reply to questions, and have no papers, I should at once be seized and sent back again to Callao.” The Indian nodded gravely. He had heard of the misfortunes that had befallen the Spaniards, and knew that the fleet that had inflicted such damage upon them was commanded by an Englishman. “The señor is provided with money,” Gomez said. “I did not myself know that he was an Englishman, though I suspected from the manner in which I was hired that he had trouble with the Spaniards.” “I would have told you so, Gomez,” Stephen said, “but I thought it better that you should not know, so that if I were seized by the Spaniards you could declare that you were wholly ignorant of my being an Englishman, and believed that I was only a trader travelling on business.” “They would not have believed me,” Gomez laughed. “You had no goods with you, and your speech showed that you were not a Peruvian. I have often wondered on the way to what nation you belonged, and how it was that one so young could be ready to undertake so desperate an enterprise as you proposed; but now that I know you are an officer under the terrible English admiral I can well understand it.” “I would do much,” Pita said, “for any enemy of the Spaniards; and more for this reason than for the sake of money. I am ready to undertake to do my best to take you in safety to Barra; beyond that I would not go. The river below that is, as I hear, quite open, and you could journey down without difficulty save such as you would meet with from the Portuguese authorities; but the distance would be too great for me to return. Even from Barra it would be a journey fully two thousand miles home again.” “What would be your terms for taking me to Barra?” “I do not say that I would take you there, señor, I only say that I would try and do so. As I tell you, I have never journeyed far down the Madeira myself, and know not what the difficulties may be. For that reason I shall want half the money paid to me when we reach Cuzco, near which live my wife and family, and I must leave this with them in case I never return. I will think over what pay I shall require for myself and my comrade. It is not a matter upon which one can decide at a word.”