Real Gold Part 19

It's just in the hot sunshine, and if there are any snakes about here, that seems a likely place."

"Any snakes about here, Diego?" asked Cyril, and the man shook his head, and replied that it was too cold.

A few minutes later they were enjoying a hearty meal, and the mules were revelling in their freedom from their loads, while the two Indians sat munching their sun-dried strips of meat, and talking together in a low voice.

"All these stones and rocks tumbled down from above, I suppose, sir?"

said Cyril, after a prolonged look upward at the peak which rose high above them, with its smooth sides glittering with snow, and a thin, white, gauzy cloud just hiding the extreme point.

"Yes, my lad," said the colonel, shading his eyes, and looking up. "The snow hides the old scar, but I should say that during some eruption the whole side of the crater fell outward, and crumbled down to here, as you say."

"Crater?" cried Cyril.

"Yes; don't you see that it is a volcano?"

"I did not, sir. Then those clouds up there are smoke?"

"More likely steam."

"Steam? Those clouds?" cried Perry, gazing up. "And is this a burning mountain?"

"Yes. You will be able to say you have been on the side of a volcano,"

said the colonel quietly. "Look at all this broken stone about; how glistening a great deal is, as if it had been molten. That piece, too, looks like scoria."

"Then hadn't we better go on at once?" cried Perry, getting up from the stone on which he was seated.

"What for? Are you afraid of an eruption?" said the colonel, with a shade of contempt in his voice.--"Feel that stone where he was sitting, Cyril; perhaps it is warm."

"Yes, it was quite warm when I sat down upon it," said Perry hastily.

"All the stones about here are nearly hot."

"Of course they are, sir," cried his father. "Have they not been baking in this hot sunshine? There, sit down and finish your dinner.

Mountains don't break out into eruption without giving some warning."

"But this must have been quite lately, sir," said Cyril, to turn the colonel's fire.

"Geologically lately, my lad," he said, picking up and examining a stone, "but not in our time, nor our grandfathers'. In all probability these stones came crumbling down some hundreds of years ago."

"Then you think there is no fear of another eruption, father?"

"If I did think there was, do you think I should be sitting here so calmly?" replied the colonel.

Perry had nothing to say to this, and he soon after became interested in a conversation which took place between Cyril and the guide, waiting impatiently until it was at an end.

"What does he say?" asked Perry, as Cyril turned away.

"That as soon as we've pa.s.sed this rough place there's another path, like the one we've come by, and he wants to know if your father means to risk it."

Perry felt a shrinking sensation, but he said nothing, knowing how determined his father was when he had set his mind upon a thing.

"I told him we were going, of course. But, I say, Perry," whispered Cyril, "how far does he mean to go?"

Perry shook his head.

"Is it any use to ask him where he means to stop?" whispered Cyril.

"No; not a bit."

"Hallo! Look here!" cried Cyril, and Perry s.n.a.t.c.hed up his piece from where it lay.

"Look out, father!" he cried, as one by one, with solemn, slow stride, some half-dozen peculiar-looking, flat-backed, long-necked animals came into sight round an angle of the valley at the far side of the chaos of stones amongst which they had made their halt.

"Put down that gun. Don't be stupid," cried Cyril. "Can't you see they are llamas?"

"What if they are? I suppose they are good to eat."

"I shouldn't like to try one," cried Cyril, laughing.

The colonel had now caught sight of the animals, which kept on coming round the corner in regular file, with their long necks held up stiffly.

"Quite a caravan," the colonel said. "Ask Diego what they are carrying."

"I know, without asking, sir," said Cyril eagerly. "They're bringing down Quinquina--kina, as they call it. You know, sir--bark."

"Hah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the colonel eagerly, and he took out the little double gla.s.s he carried to examine the train of animals, which had evidently come from the track that they were to pursue after their halt.

"You're wrong, I think, my lad," said the colonel, after a long examination through his gla.s.s. "They have all got bales of something on their backs, and, judging from the outside, I think they are skins or hides."

"Yes, sir, that's right," cried Cyril, "but it is bark inside. They make the bark up into bales, and cover them with hides before binding them up. I know; I've seen them before."

The colonel continued his inspection, and Cyril hurriedly questioned the guide before speaking to the former again.

"He says they are taking the kina down to the port, and that they will halt here to rest."

"Then we'll stay a little longer and see them," said the colonel, closing his gla.s.s after seeing several armed men turn the corner and begin to climb beside the llamas over the rugged stones.

CHAPTER NINE.

CYRIL SCENTS DANGER.

As the men in charge of the llamas came in sight of the colonel and his party, they waited for more and more to join them, and it soon became plain that they expected or meditated an attack; but a peaceful message sent on by the colonel gave them confidence, and the swarthy men, for the most part armed, came on, followed now by their charge, till the great opening in the rock-wall was filled by the drove of rough, woolly-looking animals; there being over five hundred in the caravan, and each bearing about a hundredweight of the precious fever-averting bark.

Diego and Cyril's powers were soon brought into requisition for interpreting; the strangers willingly stating where they were going, but proving themselves as eager to know the colonel's business as he showed himself about the bark bales, before the mules were once more loaded, and the English party started again, so as to get to the end of the valley before dark.

The coming of the caravan had given the boys encouragement, for, as Cyril argued to Perry, the track could not be so very bad if that drove of animals bearing loads could come along it in safety.

"I don't know about that," replied Perry. "I had a good look at them.

Short-legged, broad things like these, with soft spongy feet like camels, seem made for walking up here among the rocks; while the mules, with their long legs and hard hoofs, look as if they might slip and go over at any time."