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
to the first branches, which stretched away horizontally at forty
feet from the ground, and to hoist himself to the top of the tree, to
the point where the higher branches just bent beneath its weight, was
only sport to the active guariba, and the work of but a few seconds.

Up there, installed at his ease, he resumed his interrupted repast,
and gathered the fruits which were within his reach. Torres, like
him, was much in want of something to eat and drink, but it was
impossible! His pouch was flat, his flask was empty.

However, instead of retracing his steps he directed them toward the
tree, although the position taken up by the monkey was still more
unfavorable for him. He could not dream for one instant of climbing
the ficus, which the thief would have quickly abandoned for another.

And all the time the miserable case rattled at his ear.

Then in his fury, in his folly, Torres apostrophized the guariba. It
would be impossible for us to tell the series of invectives in which