Neither Joam Garral nor Yaquita had time to go with them. For one
reason the plan of the jangada was not yet complete, and it was
necessary that its construction should not be interrupted for a day,
and another was that Yaquita and Cybele, well seconded as they were
by the domestics of the fazenda, had not an hour to lose.

Minha had accepted the offer with much pleasure, and so, after
breakfast on the day we speak of, at about eleven o'clock, the two
young men and the two girls met on the bank at the angle where the
two streams joined. One of the blacks went with them. They all
embarked in one of the ubas used in the service of the farm, and
after having passed between the islands of Iquitos and Parianta, they
reached the right bank of the Amazon.

They landed at a clump of superb tree-ferns, which were crowned, at a
height of some thirty feet with a sort of halo made of the dainty
branches of green velvet and the delicate lacework of the drooping
fronds.

"Well, Manoel," said Minha, "it is for me to do the honors of the
forest; you are only a stranger in these regions of the Upper Amazon.
We are at home here, and you must allow me to do my duty, as mistress
of the house."

"Dearest Minha," replied the young man, "you will be none the less
mistress of your house in our town of Belem than at the fazenda of
Iquitos, and there as here----"

"Now, then," interrupted Benito, "you did not come here to exchange
loving speeches, I imagine. Just forget for a few hours that you are