They were already a long way from home and saw no reason why they should go farther.

The desert, albeit four or five leagues distant, was quite visible, and, once started down the pass, the nandu would be bound to go thither.

He could not climb the rocks to the right or the left, and the braves would take care that he did not return.
As objection, even though I had felt disposed to make it, would have been useless, I bowed acquiescence.

The thought of resisting had more than once crossed my mind, and, by dint of struggling and fighting, I might have made the nandu so restive that I could not have been fastened on his back.
But in that case my second condition would have been worse than my first; I should have been taken back to Pachatupec and either burned alive or hacked to pieces, and, black as seemed the outlook, I clung to the hope that the man-killer would somehow be the means of saving my life.
The binding was effected with considerable difficulty.

It required the united strength of nearly all the braves to hold the nandu while the cacique and the keepers secured me on his back.