take every care not to endanger the edifice which I have raised–with
what talent I dare not say. Now it is nearly a year since I was at
Tabatinga; I go to find my monuments in ruin! And if it is not
objectionable to you, Mr. Garral, I would render myself again worthy
of the reputation which I have acquired in these parts, the question
of reis, and not that of conceit, being, you understand, the
principal.”
“Go on, then, friend, ” replied Joam Garral laughingly; “but be
quick! we can only remain a day at Tabatinga, and we shall start
to-morrow at dawn.”
“I will not lose a minute,” answered Fragoso–“just time to take the
tools of my profession, and I am off.”
“Off you go, Fragoso,” said Joam, “and may the reis rain into your
pocket!”
“Yes, and that is a proper sort of rain, and there can never be too
much of it for your obedient servant.”
And so saying Fragoso rapidly moved away.
A moment afterward the family, with the exception of Joam, went
ashore. The jangada was able to approach near enough to the bank for
the landing to take place without much trouble. A staircase, in a
miserable state, cut in the cliff, allowed the visitors to arrive on
the crest of the plateau.
Yaquita and her party were received by the commandant of the fort, a
poor fellow who, however, knew the laws of hospitality, and offered
them some breakfast in his cottage. Here and there passed and
repassed several soldiers on guard, while on the threshold of the
barrack appeared a few children, with their mothers of Ticuna blood,
affording very poor specimens of the mixed race.
In place of accepting the breakfast of the sergeant, Yaquita invited
the commandant and his wife to come and have theirs on board the
jangada.
The commandant did not wait for a second invitation, and an
appointment was made for eleven o’clock. In the meantime Yaquita, her
daughter, and the young mulatto, accompanied by Manoel, went for a
walk in the neighborhood, leaving Benito to settle with the
commandant about the tolls–he being chief of the custom-house as
well as of the military establishment.
That done, Benito, as was his wont, strolled off with his gun into
the adjoining woods. On this occasion Manoel had declined to
accompany him. Fragoso had left the jangada, but instead of mounting
to the fort he had made for the village, crossing the ravine which
led off from the right on the level of the bank. He reckoned more on
the native custom of Tabatinga than on that of the garrison.
Doubtless the soldiers’ wives would not have wished better than to
have been put under his hands, but the husbands scarcely cared to
part with a few reis for the sake of gratifying the whims of their
coquettish partners.
Among the natives it was quite the reverse. Husbands and wives, the
jolly barber knew them well, and he knew they would give him a better
reception.
Behold, then, Fragoso on the road, coming up the shady lane beneath
the ficuses, and arriving in the central square of Tabatinga!
As soon as he set foot in the place the famous barber was signaled,
recognized, surrounded. Fragoso had no big box, nor drum, nor cornet
to attract the attention of his clients–not even a carriage of
shining copper, with resplendent lamps and ornamented glass panels,
nor a huge parasol, no anything whatever to impress the public, as
they generally have at fairs. No; but Fragoso had his cup and ball,
and how that cup and ball were manipulated between his fingers! With
what address did he receive the turtle’s head, which did for the
ball, on the pointed end of the stick! With what grace did he make
the ball describe some learned curve of which mathematicians have not
yet calculated the value–even those who have determined the wondrous
curve of “the dog who follows his master!”
Every native was there–men, women, the old and the young, in their
nearly primitive costume, looking on with all their eyes, listening
with all their ears. The smiling entertainer, half in Portuguese,
half in Ticunian, favored them with his customary oration in a tone