Free Banco: The Further Adventures of Papillon by Henri Charrière

slowly, drawing out his words, he said, “Listen to the advice of a man who knows that world through and through. Every time there’s a big game, a real big game--when there’s a heap of diamonds in front of you and everything is at the boiling point, get up unexpectedly and don’t sit there with your winnings. Say you’ve got a bellyache and go straight to the john. You don’t come back, of course; and that night you sleep somewhere else, not in your own place.”
    “Pretty good, José. And what else?”
    “Although the buyers at the mine pay a good deal less than the ones in El Cailao or Ciudad Boilvar, you want to sell them all the diamonds you win--sell them every day. And don’t ever take the cash . Make them give you receipts in your name so as to cash them at El Callao or Ciudad Boilvar. Do the same with foreign banknotes. You say you’re afraid of losing everything you’ve won in a single day and so you avoid the risk by never having much on you. And you tell everybody just what you’re doing, so it becomes well known.”
    “So that way I’ll have a chance of coming back?”
    “Yes. You’ll have a chance of coming back alive, if God wills.”
    “Thanks, José. Buenos noches .”
    Lying in Maria’s arms, exhausted with love, my head in the hollow of her shoulders, I felt her breath on my cheek. In the darkness, before I closed my eyes, I saw a heap of diamonds in front of me. Gently I picked them up, as though I was playing with them, and put them into the little canvas bag that all miners carry; then I got up right away and having looked round I said to Jojo, “Keep my place. I’m going to the john. I’ll be back in a minute.” And as I dropped off, there were José’s knowing eyes, shining full of light--only people who live very close to nature have eyes like that.
    The morning passed quickly. Everything was settled. Picolino was to stay there; he would be well cared for. I kissed everybody. Maria shone with delight. She knew that if I went to the mines I’d have to come back this way, whereas Caracas never gave back the men who went to live there. She went with me as far as the meeting place. Five o’clock; Jojo was there, and in great form. “Hello there, man! Okay? You’re prompt--fine, fine! The sun will be down in an hour. It’s better that way. No one can follow you at night.”
    A dozen kisses for my true love and I climbed into the saddle. Jojo fixed the stirrups for me and just as we were setting off Maria said to me, “And above all, mi amor , don’t forget to go to the lavatory at the right moment.”
    I burst out laughing as I dug my heels into the mule. “You were listening behind the door, you Judas!”
    “When you love, it’s natural.”
    Now we were away, Jojo on a horse and me on a mule. The virgin forest has its roads, called piques . A pique is a passage about two yards wide that has gradually been cut through the trees; and the men who pass along keep it clear with their machetes. On either side, a wall of green: above, a roof of millions of plants, but too high to be reached with a machete even if you stand in your stirrups. This is the selva, the tropical forest. It is made up of an impenetrable tangle of two kinds of vegetation: a layer of creepers, trees, and plants that do not rise much above twenty feet, and over that, mounting to seventy-five or a hundred feet, the splendid great tops of the huge trees that climb higher and higher to reach the sun. Although their tops are in the sunlight, the foliage of their wide, leafy branches makes a thick screen, keeping off all but a dim, filtered day. In a tropical forest you are in a wonderful landscape that bursts into growth all over, so as you ride along a pique you have to hold the reins in one hand and keep slashing at everything that gets in your way. A pique where a certain number of people keep coming and going always looks like a well-kept corridor.
    There’s nothing that gives a man such a sense of freedom