Beltran and Juan Lepe had need for all their
strength of body.
The worst was that that old tremor and weakness of one
leg and side, left after some sea fight, which had made Beltran
the cook from Beltran the mariner, came back. I saw his
step begin to halt and drag. This increased. An hour later,
the path going over tree roots knotted like serpents, he
stumbled and fell. He picked himself up. "Hard to keep
deck in this gale!"
When he went down there had been an exclamation from
those Indians nearest us. "Aiya!" It was their word for
rotten, no good, spoiled, disappointing, crippled or diseased,
for a misformed child or an old man or woman arrived
at helplessness. Such, I had learned from Guarin, they
almost invariably killed. It was why, from the first, we
hardly saw dwarfed or humped or crippled among them.
We had to cross a torrent upon a tree that falling had
made from side to side a rounded bridge. Again that old
hurt betrayed him. He slipped, would have fallen into the
torrent below, but that I, turning, caught him and the Indian
behind us helped. We managed across. "My ship," said
Beltran, "is going to pieces on the rocks."
The path became ladder steep. Now Beltran delayed all,
for it was a lame man climbing. I helped him all I could.
The sun was near its setting. We were aloft in these
mountains.
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