And, without hesitation, the young mulatto boldly ventured toward
Benito.
“What children they are!” replied Minha. “Come along, Manoel, we must
follow.”
And they all cleared the bridge, which swayed above the ravine like a
swing, and plunged again beneath the mighty trees.
But they had not proceeded for ten minutes along the interminable
cipo, in the direction of the river, when they stopped, and this time
not without cause.
“Have we got to the end of the liana?” asked Minha.
“No,” replied Benito; “but we had better advance with care. Look!”
and Benito pointed to the cipo which, lost in the branches of a high
ficus, was agitated by violent shakings.
“What causes that?” asked Manoel.
“Perhaps some animal that we had better approach with a little
circumspection!”
And Benito, cocking his gun, motioned them to let him go on a bit,
and stepped about ten paces to the front.
Manoel, the two girls, and the black remained motionless where they
were.
Suddenly Benito raised a shout, and they saw him rush toward a tree;
they all ran as well.
Sight the most unforeseen, and little adapted to gratify the eyes!
A man, hanging by the neck, struggled at the end of the liana, which,
supple as a cord, had formed into a slipknot, and the shakings came
from the jerks into which he still agitated it in the last
convulsions of his agony!
Benito threw himself on the unfortunate fellow, and with a cut of his
hunting-knife severed the cipo.
The man slipped on to the ground. Manoel leaned over him, to try and
recall him to life, if it was not too late.
“Poor man!” murmured Minha.
“Mr. Manoel! Mr. Manoel! cried Lina. “He breathes again! His heart
beats; you must save him.”
“True,” said Manoel, “but I think it was about time that we came up.”
He was about thirty years old, a white, clothed badly enough, much
emaciated, and he seemed to have suffered a good deal.
At his feet were an empty flask, thrown on the ground, and a cup and
ball in palm wood, of which the ball, made of the head of a tortoise,
was tied on with a fiber.
“To hang himself! to hang himself!” repeated Lina, “and young still!
What could have driven him to do such a thing?”
But the attempts of Manoel had not been long in bringing the luckless
wight to life again, and he opened his eyes and gave an “ahem!” so
vigorous and unexpected that Lina, frightened, replied to his cry
with another.
“Who are you, my friend?” Benito asked him.
“An ex-hanger-on, as far as I see.”
“But your name?”
“Wait a minute and I will recall myself,” said he, passing his hand
over his forehead. “I am known as Fragoso, at your service; and I am
still able to curl and cut your hair, to shave you, and to make you
comfortable according to all the rules of my art. I am a barber, so
to speak more truly, the most desperate of Figaros.”
“And what made you think of—-”
“What would you have, my gallant sir?” replied Fragoso, with a smile;
“a moment of despair, which I would have duly regretted had the
regrets been in another world! But eight hundred leagues of country
to traverse, and not a coin in my pouch, was not very comforting! I
had lost courage obviously.”
To conclude, Fragoso had a good and pleasing figure, and as he
recovered it was evident that he was of a lively disposition. He was
one of those wandering barbers who travel on the banks of the Upper
Amazon, going from village to village, and putting the resources of
their art at the service of negroes, negresses, Indians and Indian
women, who appreciate them very much.
But poor Fragoso, abandoned and miserable, having eaten nothing for
forty hours, astray in the forest, had for an instant lost his head,
and we know the rest.
“My friend,” said Benito to him, “you will go back with us to the
fazenda of Iquitos?”
“With pleasure,” replied Fragoso; “you cut me down and I belong to
you. I must somehow be dependent.”
“Well, dear mistress, don’t you think we did well to continue our