MURDER OF PAIS HON 293 



he had fallen, shot through the heart. 1 feared that 

 Julio had run amuck, and intended merely to take more 

 lives before he died, and that he would begin with 

 Pedrinho, who was alone and unarmed in the camp we 

 had left. Accordingly 1 pushed on, followed by my 

 companions, looking sharply right and left ; but when 

 we came to the camp the doctor quietly walked by me, 

 remarking : " My eyes are better than yours, Colonel ; 

 if he is in sight I'll point him out to you, as you have 

 the rifle." However, he was not there, and the others 

 soon joined us with the welcome news that they had 

 found the carbine. 



The murderer had stood to one side of the path and 

 killed his victim, when a dozen paces off, with deliberate 

 and malignant purpose. Then evidently his murderous 

 hatred had at once given way to his innate cowardice, 

 and, perhaps hearing someone coming along the path, 

 he fled in panic terror into the wilderness. A tree had 

 knocked the carbine from his hand. His footsteps 

 showed that after going some rods he had started to 

 return, doubtless for the carbine, but had fled again, 

 probably because the body had then been discovered. 

 It was questionable whether or not he would live to 

 reach the Indian villages, which were probably his goal. 

 He was not a man to feel remorse — never a common 

 feeling ; but surely that murderer was in a living hell, 

 as, with fever and famine leering at him from the 

 shadows, he made his way through the empty desola- 

 tion of the wilderness. Franca, the cook, quoted out 

 of the melancholy proverbial philosophy of the people 

 the proverb : " No man knows the heart of anyone ; " 

 and then expressed with deep conviction a weird 

 ghostly belief I had never encountered before : 

 "Paishon is following Julio now, and will follow 



