These manoeuvres, many times repeated, puzzled Paganel and annoyed Glenarvan. The geographer was accordingly requested to interrogate the Indian, which he did at once. Thalcave replied that he was astonished to see the plain so soaked with moisture. Never within his recollection, since he had performed the office of guide, had his feet trodden a soil so saturated. Even in the season of the great rains the Argentine plain was always easily passed.
"But to what do you attribute this increasing moisture?" asked Paganel.
"I know not," replied the Indian; "and what if I did?"
"Do the mountain streams, when swollen with the rains, ever overflow their banks?"
Paganel was forced to be contented with this answer, and communicated to Glenarvan the result of the conversation.
"And what does Thalcave advise?" inquired Glenarvan.
"What is to be done?" asked Paganel of the Patagonian.
This advice was easier to give than to follow. The horses were quickly fatigued with treading a soil that sank beneath them deeper and deeper as they progressed, so that this part of the plain might have been compared to an immense basin in which the invading waters would rapidly accumulate. It was advisable, therefore, to cross without delay these sloping terraces that an inundation would have instantly transformed into a lake.
They hastened their pace, though there was no great depth to the water which spread out in a sheet beneath the horses' feet. About two o'clock the flood-gates of the heavens opened, and tropical torrents of rain descended. Never was a finer opportunity presented for showing oneself a philosopher. There was no chance of escaping this deluge, and it was better for the travelers to receive it stoically. Their ponchos were soon dripping, and their hats wet them still more, like roofs whose gutters have overflowed. The fringes of the saddle-cloths seemed so many liquid streams; and the horsemen, bespattered by their animals, whose hoofs splashed in the water at every step, rode in a double shower, which came from the ground as well as the sky.
It was in this wretchedly cold and exhausted state that they arrived, towards evening, at a very miserable rancho. Only people who were not fastidious could have given it the name of a shelter, only travelers in distress would consent to occupy it. But Glenarvan and his companions had no choice. They therefore cowered down in the abandoned hut which would not have satisfied even a poor Indian of the plains. A sorry fire of grass, which gave out more smoke than heat, was kindled with difficulty. The torrents of rain made havoc without, and large drops oozed through the mouldy thatch. The fire was extinguished twenty times, and twenty times did Wilson and Mulready struggle against the invading water.