some tree trunk, to disappear under a bush, might induce the guariba
to pull up and retrace his steps, and there was nothing else for
Torres to try. This was what he did, and the pursuit commenced under
these conditions; but when the captain of the woods disappeared, the
monkey patiently waited until he came into sight again, and at this
game Torres fatigued himself without result.
“Confound the guariba!” he shouted at length. “There will be no end
to this, and he will lead me back to the Brazilian frontier. If only
he would let go of my case! But no! The jingling of the money amuses
him. Oh, you thief! If I could only get hold of you!”
And Torres recommenced the pursuit, and the monkey scuttled off with
renewed vigor.
An hour passed in this way without any result. Torres showed a
persistency which was quite natural. How without this document could
he get his money?
And then anger seized him. He swore, he stamped, he threatened the
guariba. That annoying animal only responded by a chuckling which was
enough to put him beside himself.
And then Torres gave himself up to the chase. He ran at top speed,
entangling himself in the high undergrowth, among those thick
brambles and interlacing creepers, across which the guariba passed
like a steeplechaser. Big roots hidden beneath the grass lay often in
the way. He stumbled over them and again started in pursuit. At
length, to his astonishment, he found himself shouting:
“Come here! come here! you robber!” as if he could make him
understand him.
His strength gave out, breath failed him, and he was obliged to stop.
“Confound it!” said he, “when I am after runaway slaves across the
jungle they never give me such trouble as this! But I will have you,
you wretched monkey! I will go, yes, I will go as far as my legs will
carry me, and we shall see!”
The guariba had remained motionless when he saw that the adventurer
had ceased to pursue him. He rested also, for he had nearly reached
that degree of exhaustion which had forbidden all movement on the
part of Torres.
He remained like this during ten minutes, nibbling away at two or
three roots, which he picked off the ground, and from time to time he
rattled the case at his ear.
Torres, driven to distraction, picked up the stones within his reach,
and threw them at him, but did no harm at such a distance.
But he hesitated to make a fresh start. On one hand, to keep on in
chase of the monkey with so little chance of reaching him was
madness. On the other, to accept as definite this accidental
interruption to all his plans, to be not only conquered, but cheated
and hoaxed by a dumb animal, was maddening. And in the meantime
Torres had begun to think that when the night came the robber would
disappear without trouble, and he, the robbed one, would find a
difficulty in retracing his way through the dense forest. In fact,
the pursuit had taken him many miles from the bank of the river, and
he would even now find it difficult to return to it.
Torres hesitated; he tried to resume his thoughts with coolness, and
finally, after giving vent to a last imprecation, he was about to
abandon all idea of regaining possession of his case, when once more,
in spite of himself, there flashed across him the thought of his
document, the remembrance of all that scaffolding on which his future
hopes depended, on which he had counted so much; and he resolved to
make another effort.
Then he got up.
The guariba got up too.
He made several steps in advance.
The monkey made as many in the rear, but this time, instead of
plunging more deeply into the forest, he stopped at the foot of an
enormous ficus–the tree of which the different kinds are so numerous
all over the Upper Amazon basin.
To seize the trunk with his four hands, to climb with the agility of
a clown who is acting the monkey, to hook on with his prehensile tail