The Rover of the Andes | Page 9

being a servant he had no expenses to bear.
Of course the finest, as well as the best-looking, mule had been given
to the pretty Manuela, and, despite the masculine attitude of her
position, she sat and managed her steed with a grace of motion that
might have rendered many a white dame envious. Although filled with
admiration, Lawrence was by no means surprised, for he knew well that
in the Pampas, or plains, to which region her father belonged, the
Indians are celebrated for their splendid horsemanship. Indeed, their
little children almost live on horseback, commencing their training long
before they can mount, and overcoming the difficulty of smallness in
early youth, by climbing to the backs of their steeds by means of a
fore-leg, and not unfrequently by the tail.
The costume of the girl was well suited to her present mode of life,
being a sort of light tunic reaching a little below the knees, with loose
leggings, which were richly ornamented with needlework. A straw hat
with a simple feather, covered her head, beneath which her curling
black hair flowed in unconfined luxuriance. She wore no ornament of
any kind, and the slight shoes that covered her small feet were perfectly
plain. In short, there was a modest simplicity about the girl's whole
aspect and demeanour which greatly interested the Englishman,
inducing him to murmur to himself, "What an uncommonly pretty girl
she would be if she were only white!"
The colour of her skin was, indeed, unusually dark, but that fact did not
interfere with the classic delicacy of her features, or the natural

sweetness of her expression.
The order of progress in narrow places was such that Manuela rode
behind Pedro and in front of Lawrence, Quashy bringing up the rear. In
more open places the young Englishman used occasionally to ride up
abreast of Manuela and endeavour to engage her in conversation. He
was, to say truth, very much the reverse of what is styled a lady's man,
and had all his life felt rather shy and awkward in female society, but
being a sociable, kindly fellow, he felt it incumbent on him to do what
in him lay to lighten the tedium of the long journey to one who, he
thought, must naturally feel very lonely with no companions but men.
"Besides," he whispered to himself, "she is only an Indian, and of
course cannot construe my attentions to mean anything so ridiculous as
love-making-- so, I will speak to her in a fatherly sort of way."
Filled with this idea, as the party came out upon a wide and beautiful
table-land, which seemed like a giant emerald set in a circlet of grand
blue mountains, Lawrence pushed up alongside, and said--
"Poor girl, I fear that such prolonged riding over these rugged passes
must fatigue you." Manuela raised her dark eyes to the youth's face,
and, with a smile that was very slight--though not so slight but that it
revealed a double row of bright little teeth--she replied softly--
"W'at you say?"
"Oh! I forgot, you don't speak English. How stupid I am!" said
Lawrence with a blush, for he was too young to act the "fatherly" part
well.
He felt exceedingly awkward, but, observing that the girl's eyes were
again fixed pensively on the ground, he hoped that she had not noticed
the blush, and attempted to repeat the phrase in Spanish. What he said
it is not possible to set down in that tongue, nor can we gratify the
reader with a translation. Whatever it was, Manuela replied by again
raising her dark eyes for a moment--this time without a smile--and
shaking her head.

Poor Lawrence felt more awkward than ever. In despair he half thought
of making trial of Latin or Greek, when Pedro came opportunely to the
rescue. Looking back he began--
"Senhor Armstrong--"
"I think," interrupted the youth, "that you may dispense with `Senhor.'"
"Nay, I like to use it," returned the guide. "It reminds me so forcibly of
the time when I addressed your good old father thus."
"Well, Senhor Pedro, call me what you please. What were you about to
say?"
"Only that we are now approaching one of the dangerous passes of the
mountains, where baggage-mules sometimes touch the cliffs with their
packs, and so get tilted over the precipices. But our mules are quiet, and
with ordinary care we have nothing to fear."
The gorge in the mountains, which the travellers soon afterwards
entered, fully justified the guide's expression "dangerous." It was a wild,
rugged glen, high up on one side of which the narrow pathway
wound--in some places rounding a cliff or projecting boulder, which
rendered the passage of the baggage-mules extremely difficult. Indeed,
one of the mules did slightly graze a rock