But I remained firm to my resolve.  For, albeit, none perceived it but myself I was in a false position.  Though I was hopelessly in love with Juanita I liked her so well that the contemplation of Carmen’s happiness did not add to my own.  I thought, too, that Juanita guessed the true state of the case; and she was so kind and gentle withal, and her gratitude at times was so demonstrative that I feared if I stayed long at Naparima there might be trouble, for like all men of Spanish blood, Carmen was quite capable of being furiously jealous.

I left them a month before the day fixed for their marriage.  My companions were Gahra, and a dozen Indians and mestizoes, to each of whom I was enabled, by Don Esteban’s kindness, to give a handsome gratuity beforehand.

To Juanita I gave as a wedding-present my ruby-ring, to Carmen my horse Pizarro.

Our parting was one of the most painful incidents of my long and checkered life.  I loved them both and I think they loved me.  Juanita wept abundantly; we all embraced and tried to console ourselves by promising each other that we should meet again; but when or where or how, none of us could tell, and in our hearts we knew that the chances against the fruition of our hopes were too great to be reckoned.

Then, full of sad thoughts and gloomy forebodings, I set out on my long journey to the unknown.

CHAPTER XX.

THE HAPPY VALLEY.

My gloomy forebodings were only too fully realized.  Never was a more miserably monotonous journey.  After riding for weeks, through sodden, sunless forests and trackless wastes we had to abandon our mules and take to our feet, spend weeks on nameless rivers, poling and paddling our canoe in the terrible heat, and tormented almost to madness by countless insects.  Then the rains came on, and we were weather-stayed for months in a wretched Indian village.  But for the help of friendly aborigines—­and fortunately the few we met, being spoken fair showed themselves friendly—­we must all have perished.  They gave us food, lent us canoes, served us as pilots and guides, and thought themselves well paid with a piece of scarlet cloth or a handful of glass beads.

My men turned out quite as ill as I had been led to expect.  Several deserted at the outset, two or three died of fever, two were eaten by alligators, and when we first caught sight of the Andes, Gahra was my sole companion.

We were in a pitiful plight.  I was weak from the effects of a fever, Gahra lame from the effects of an accident.  My money was nearly all gone, my baggage had been lost by the upsetting of a canoe, and our worldly goods consisted of two sorry mules, our arms, the ragged clothes on our backs, and a few pieces of silver.  How we were to cross the Andes, and what we should do when we reached Peru was by no means clear.  As yet, the fortune which I had set out to seek seemed further off than ever.  We had found neither gold nor silver nor precious stones, and all the coin I had in my waist-belt would not cover the cost of a three days’ sojourn at the most modest of posaderos.