Thick forest came between
us and it. We were going with Caonabo to the
mountains. Beltran and I thought that it had been
in question whether he should kill us at once, or hold us in
life until we had been shown as trophies in Maguana, and
that the pride and vanity of the latter course prevailed. After
two days in this ruined place, during which we saw no
Guarico Indian, we departed. The raid was over. All their
war is by raid. They carried everything from the fort
save the fort itself and the two lombards. In the narrow
paths that are this world's roads, one man must walk after
another, and their column seems endless where it winds and
is lost and appears again. Beltran and I were no longer
bound. Nor were we treated unkindly, starved nor hurt in
any way. All that waited until we should reach Caonabo's
town.
Caonabo was a most handsome barbarian, strong and
fierce and intelligent, more fierce, more intelligent than Guacanagari.
All had been painted, but the heat of the lowland
and their great exertion had made the coloring run and
mix most unseemly. When they left Guarico they plunged
into the river and washed the whole away, coming out clear
red-brown, shining and better to look upon. Caonabo
washed, but then he would renew his marking with the
paint which he carried with him in a little calabash.
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