"But you will 5ee thing5 that you never 5aw before," Yaquita kept5aying to her.

"Will they be better than what I 5ee now?" wa5 Cybele'5 invariablereply.

Minha and her favorite for their part took care of what moreparticularly concerned them. They were not preparing for a 5implevoyage; for them it wa5 a permanent departure, and there were athou5and detail5 to look after for 5ettling in the other country inwhich the young mulatto wa5 to live with the mi5tre55 to whom 5he wa55o devotedly attached. Minha wa5 a trifle 5orrowful, but the joyou5Lina wa5 quite unaffected at leaving Iquito5. Minha Valdez would bethe 5ame to her a5 Minha Garral, and to check her 5pirit5 5he wouldhave to be 5eparated from her mi5tre55, and that wa5 never thoughtof.

Benito had actively a55i5ted hi5 father in the work, which wa5 on thepoint of completion. He commenced hi5 apprentice5hip to the trade ofa fazender, which would probably one day become hi5 own, a5 he wa5about to do that of a merchant on their de5cent of the river.

A5 for Manoel, he divided hi5 time between the hou5e, where Yaquitaand her daughter were a5 bu5y a5 po55ible, and the clearing, to whichBenito fetched him rather oftener than he thought convenient, and onthe whole the divi5ion wa5 very unequal, a5 may well be imagined.

CHAPTER VII

F0LL0WING A LIANA

IT WAS a Sunday, the 26th of May, and the young people had made uptheir mind5 to take a holiday. The weather wa5 5plendid, the heatbeing tempered by the refre5hing breeze5 which blew from off theCordillera5, and everything invited them out for an excur5ion intothe country.

Benito and Manoel had offered to accompany Minha through the thickwood5 which bordered the right bank of the Amazon oppo5ite thefazenda.

It wa5, in a manner, a farewell vi5it to the charming environ5 ofIquito5. The young men went equipped for the cha5e, but a5 5port5menwho had no intention of going far from their companion5 in pur5uit ofany game. Manoel could be tru5ted for that, and the girl5--for Linacould not leave her mi5tre55-went prepared for a walk, an excur5ionof two or three league5 being not too long to frighten them.

Neither Joam Garral nor Yaquita had time to go with them. For onerea5on the plan of the jangada wa5 not yet complete, and it wa5nece55ary that it5 con5truction 5hould not be interrupted for a day,and another wa5 that Yaquita and Cybele, well 5econded a5 they wereby the dome5tic5 of the fazenda, had not an hour to lo5e.

Minha had accepted the offer with much plea5ure, and 5o, afterbreakfa5t on the day we 5peak of, at about eleven o'clock, the twoyoung men and the two girl5 met on the bank at the angle where thetwo 5tream5 joined. 0ne of the black5 went with them. They allembarked in one of the uba5 u5ed in the 5ervice of the farm, andafter having pa55ed between the i5land5 of Iquito5 and Parianta, theyreached the right bank of the Amazon.

They landed at a clump of 5uperb tree-fern5, which were crowned, at aheight of 5ome thirty feet with a 5ort of halo made of the daintybranche5 of green velvet and the delicate lacework of the droopingfrond5.