These parrots jabbered with such a noise that Dick Sand thought of firing at them to oblige them to be silent, or to put them to flight.  But Harris dissuaded him, under the pretext that in these solitudes it was better not to disclose his presence by the detonation of a fire-arm.

“Let us pass along without noise,” he said, “and we shall pass along without danger.”

Supper was prepared at once, without any need of proceeding to cook food.  It was composed of conserves and biscuit.  A little rill, which wound under the plants, furnished drinkable water, which they did not drink without improving it with a few drops of rum.  As to dessert, the mango was there with its juicy fruit, which the parrots did not allow to be picked without protesting with their abominable cries.

At the end of the supper it began to be dark.  The shade rose slowly from the ground to the tops of the trees, from which the foliage soon stood out like a fine tracery on the more luminous background of the sky.  The first stars seemed to be shining flowers, which twinkled at the end of the last branches.  The wind went down with the night, and no longer trembled in the branches of the trees.  The parrots themselves had become mute.  Nature was going to rest, and inviting every living being to follow her in this deep sleep.

Preparations for retiring had to be of a very primitive character.

“Shall we not light a large fire for the night?” Dick Sand asked the American.

“What’s the good?” replied Harris.  “Fortunately the nights are not cold, and this enormous mango will preserve the soil from all evaporation.  We have neither cold nor dampness to fear.  I repeat, my young friend, what I told you just now.  Let us move along incognito.  No more fire than gunshots, if possible.”

“I believe, indeed,” then said Mrs. Weldon, “that we have nothing to fear from the Indians—­even from those wanderers of the woods, of whom you have spoken, Mr. Harris.  But, are there not other four-footed wanderers, that the sight of a fire would help to keep at a distance?”

“Mrs. Weldon,” replied the American, “you do too much honor to the deer of this country.  Indeed, they fear man more than he fears them.”

“We are in a wood,” said Jack, “and there is always beasts in the woods.”

“There are woods and woods, my good little man, as there are beasts and beasts,” replied Harris, laughing.  “Imagine that you are in the middle of a large park.  Truly, it is not without reason that the Indians say of this country, ‘Es como el pariso!’ It is like an earthly paradise!”

“Then there are serpents?” said Jack.

“No, my Jack,” replied Mrs. Weldon, “there are no serpents, and you may sleep tranquilly.”

“And lions?” asked Jack.

“Not the ghost of a lion, my good little man,” replied Harris.

“Tigers, then?”

“Ask your mama if she has ever heard tell of tigers on this continent.”