Rio Chico. He is anxious to fight, he said. _He_ fight!”
Ricardo’s pale face widened in a grin.
“Maybe you taught him,” he suggested slyly. She understood. “Ah, now,
Ricardo, you are wrong. Yes, you are wrong. Once I was quick-tempered,
perhaps. But I am not _brava_ now. No, no. I have learned better. And
Juan was happy with me.”
Ricardo was sober again. Suddenly, nostrils swelling, he threw up his
head.
“Sometimes I think of going to join _La Gente_, too,” he said.
“Do not be a fool,” Antonia returned. “Within the hour I start for
Carenero. But”--her voice was lowered engagingly--“I will stay here if
you wish it.”
But Ricardo, having tossed aside his cigarette, was pulling nervously
at a curly lock and edging away.
“_Adiós_,” he said, with more troubled glances toward home. “A pleasant
journey. _Adiós._”
“_Adiós_,” echoed the other regretfully.
All this while, from her one window, Manuelita had been watching. She
had seen Ricardo stop before Antonia’s, seen him light her _tabaco_,
and their talking back and forth. And as he started for his hut once
more, she scolded to herself in a passionate undertone, she stamped
the floor with an angry foot. He had made of her an object for further
taunting. He had made her the laughingstock of the San Jacinto.
“_Madre de Dios!_” she exclaimed over and over, her lips white with
rage and mortification. “But I shall punish him for this!”
Ricardo had scarce entered, her name on his tongue, when the full
volume of her ire burst upon him with tropical rigor and suddenness.
“So you have been to see that crooked face,” she cried furiously. “You
sneak, you! you that are full of lies!”
Not altogether surprised, he strove to meet her attack by replying, to
stem it through endearments. She would not hear. She would have none of
his caresses. And he could do nothing but seat himself on a bull’s-hide
chair, rest his chin somewhat sheepishly on his breast, and listen.
“Oh, I will not stay with you another day,” she vowed, breath and wits
taxed at last for epithets. “I, a girl that all have desired, that
could have a better house, yes, one covered with pink stucco, and finer
clothes, and shoes, and even a ring or two, and no work, and all the
cigarettes I want--here I am with you, who are coiled like a _culebra_,
ready to sting, to kill. You coward!”
“I have always treated you well,” retorted Ricardo sulkily, “and
I am not a coward. I shall show you. I shall go to fight with the
Revolutionists.”
“Go, go, go,” she answered. “_I_ shall not mourn. You cannot shame me
before them all. Go, and take her with you!”
She flung herself upon the bed, without a look at him, without a
thought for their supperless baby, curled up on a gunny sack by the
door. There, worn out with the violence of her quarrelling, she sobbed
herself to sleep.
Late in the night she awoke suddenly and sat up. She was cold; she felt
alone; she was startled, too, as if something direful had happened.
Forgetting her wrongs in her fear, she reached out her arms and called
softly. The _cubierta_ was not spread over her. Only the under blanket
was left upon the rushes of the bed. And Ricardo was not by her side!
She sprang out upon the floor, feeling this way and that.
“Ricardo! Where are you?” she demanded. “Answer. You will have me
wakening Niñito next.”
She touched the reed partition, the table, the chairs. Then she lit
the _lámpara_ and held it above her, looking into every corner of the
living room and the kitchen. He was not in the hut!
On the instant she was like one gone mad.
“_Madre de Dios!_” she gasped. “They are together!”
She set the lamp on the table, snatched up a flat, spear-shaped
_lanza_, and raced off down the street. Arrived at Antonia’s, she
entered swiftly.
By the light of the single window, that, here, faced the moon, she saw
that the room was deserted.
In her own home, once more, she examined the mud walls closely.
Ah!--the new _machete_ was gone from its nail! And, farther along,
the carved gourd flask that held _aguardiente_! They had left the
_hacienda_!
She blew out the light and took her stand by the door. Her eyes blazed
with hatred and anger. She gave out little inarticulate cries. She
shook the keen-pointed _lanza_ at the hut down the street.
For a long time, thus. Then she grew quieter, and leaned back wearily
against the wall. Then she slipped down to a sitting posture on the
ground, and her head drooped forward to her knees.
The day broke, the pigs came up, grunting and rooting. A chicken flew
to her shoulder and pecked at a bright flower in her waist. She looked
up, and the memory of her quarrel and her loss came back. She groaned
and covered her face.
From across the street her mother saw her and scented trouble. She came
waddling over, her shrivelled face all anxiety.
“What is it, Manuelita?” she asked. “Is the _niño_ dead?” Then, spying
the baby, “Or, perhaps, a pig?”
Manuelita shook her head.
The old woman peered about her, searching for the cause of the trouble.
“What, then, what?” she inquired.
“Ricardo is gone!”
The other stared.
“Gone!” she repeated in a tone of disgust; “gone! Do you say that you
are deserted? Nineteen, only, and deserted. Pst! You are a fool! I kept
your father beside me until I was more than twenty-five!”
“Oh, mamma!” It was a plaintive, heart-broken cry.
“But there is no use to snivel over it. What will you do? Do not make
a fuss outside here, for all the men to see. Be up, and act gay. Now,
there is Felipe, the younger one. He gets four _reales_ a day in the
_cacao_ court. He is worth something, I can tell you. And there is
Juan. As you know, Antonia Toro----”
Now, Manuelita looked up, and her whole body trembled with fury.
“Antonia!” she repeated hoarsely. “He has gone with her!”
“So?” The old woman looked incredulous. Then she hitched a shoulder.
“Ah, well, no matter. You have chickens and pigs, and you are but
nineteen. You have only one baby, too, and he is not much trouble. Soon
he will be old enough to look out for himself. Why”--in a burst of
generosity--“I will take him off your hands myself for a while. Get up.”
In her eagerness, she put out a claw of a hand to pull at her
daughter’s sleeve.
“Ah! mamma! mamma!” Manuelita’s voice was deeper now, almost a groan.
“You forget, mamma,--Felipe is not Ricardo.”
“Bah! Ricardo! He is gone. Look you--look you, there is Felipe now!”
“No--no,” Manuelita protested, raising a tear-stained face.
Felipe was indeed coming up the street. He looked angry too, and was
rubbing his kinky hair at every step.
“Where is Ricardo?” he demanded as soon as he was within hearing.
“Where is he, I say? Why should I work if he does not?”
And now such a mingling of voices--Felipe repeating questions to
which he received no answer; the old woman boldly stating Manuelita’s
new domestic status; the girl crying out against her mother’s hasty
planning.
But after a time, when matters became clear to Felipe, he fell silent
to ponder, and the old woman quieted to await his reply. As for
Manuelita, she was sobbing a determination. “I shall follow, I shall
follow,” she declared. “And when I find them, I shall kill!”
“Felipe can go along,” suggested her mother, “and help you.”
Manuelita glanced at Felipe, and recoiled.
“Where have they gone?” he asked her. “Do you know?”
“He took our _cubierta_, the new _machete_, and a flask. Yesterday he
threatened to join the Revolutionists.”
“He will go either to Tacarigua or to Rio Chico, in that case,” Felipe
declared. He began to look dubious. Laying an index finger in the palm
of a hand, he did some calculating. It would take not less than so many
days, perhaps. At four _reales_ each day--he counted on his fingers.
“Out so much for just a woman!” he concluded. “I will not do it.”
But Manuelita did not hear. She was on her feet and getting ready to
leave. The baby, awake and hungry, seemed to know her purpose. He began
a lusty howling.
“Take, mamma.” She pushed him toward her mother.
The old woman caught the squalling child between her knees, hastily lit
a _tabaco_, put it between her toothless gums to make it burn, and gave
it to him. He grew still at once, seized the long cigar in both little
hands, and fell to smoking industriously.
“Foolish! foolish!” she scolded. “And you will have your trouble for
naught. Can you hold a man who does not want you? No woman can do that.
You had better stay.”
Manuelita ignored the advice. She was putting the last touches to her
preparations. In a bright cotton handkerchief she tied a comb, several
baked plantains, some round thick _arepas_ made of mashed corn, and
her cigarettes; she swung her straw hat over one arm and dropped the
_lanza_ into a sheath of inlaid leather at her belt. Then, without a
glance at mother, child, or neighbour, she went rapidly up the street
and entered the _cacao_ under low-hanging branches.
But soon she paused to consider a moment. What if she were travelling
the wrong way! Suppose they had gone in an easterly direction, toward
Rio Chico. Yet, no, for Juan was there. Besides, since the _hacienda_
of San Jacinto, a portion of the northern half of the plain of
Barlovento, curves in to meet the Rio Tuy, the couple would have had
to cross the swollen stream at the very start. They would go north, to
Tacarigua. She was sure of that. And, taking off her _alpargatas_, she
walked in a great semicircle, looking for fresh footprints.
Across ditch after ditch she went, through black water and blacker
ooze. Sometimes her steps were sure, more often she sank to the knees,
or fell, her hands flattening against a ditch side.
She found fresh footprints in countless numbers, and leading toward
every point of the compass. Some had been made by naked feet, some by
_alpargatas_. Some were long and wide, some were short and more narrow.
She was bewildered by them.
“Ah! _Madre de Dios!_” she faltered.
Presently, pointing northward, she found two sets, the one plainly a
man’s, the other smaller. They were new, too, for the ooze still stood
in them. Instantly her attention fixed upon these. She floundered after
them, rod upon rod, as certain that she was upon the right trail as if
she could see Ricardo and the woman ahead of her. Here the footprints
were close together--she ground her teeth. Here they were farther
apart. And here someone had stumbled, for there was the mark of a naked
palm on the soft earth. She laughed, and stroked the handle of the
_lanza_.
When the tracks left the _hacienda_ of San Jacinto they entered that
of its northern neighbour--Guevara. Here they made a detour to avoid
the _cacao_ court and huts of the plantation’s workers. Then on again,
through mud and mire, keeping always straight toward Tacarigua.
Farther still, when this _hacienda_ was crossed, they entered the rough
path leading northward through the forest, and were lost.
At midday Manuelita stopped at a deep-shadowed spot on the road to eat
a meal of baked plantain and _arepa_. The monkeys jabbered down at
her. Now and then she heard strange movements close by in the jungle.
But she felt no fear. A few moments for food, a pull at a water-filled
gourd flask, a few crumbs to a lizard, blinking--head downward--from a
tree trunk at her elbow, and she trotted on.
It was the hour before sunset when, through a tangle, she peered out
from the forest’s edge. Before her was a shallow stream, muddy though
it was flowing over a bed of pebbles. Beyond, a cluster of red, tiled
roofs, was Tacarigua. Tacarigua! And _they_ were there!
She opened her bundle for the comb; bathed quickly face, arms, and from
foot to knee, and carefully rubbed away the caked dirt marring the
bright figures of her skirt. Then, with the sun looking back from the
ragged range of La Silla de Caracas, and a breeze beginning to stir the
leaves that fringed the water, she slipped on her _alpargatas_, took
the path again, and entered the village.
* * * * *
General Blanco Alcantara, in command of the Revolutionary force at
Tacarigua, sat upon his horse before the green-walled Jefatura Civil.
He looked quite imposing. A broad hat, wound in the blue of his cause,
was set rakishly upon his black hair. A wide sash of webbed stuff in
the same blue ran over his right shoulder and was wrinkled into the
loop of his sabre scabbard, from which, knotted, it fell, ends free, to
a silver spur.
Near him, lounging upon the steps of the building, were several
officers, smoking, talking, and evidently waiting. To one side, also
occupied with their _tabacos_ and gossip, were as many _asistentes_,
waiting, too, and looking as important as the discarded apparel of
their superiors would permit.
When Manuelita approached the general, he was looking down his straight
nose at the cigarette he was rolling in his fingers. But at the sound
of her voice close to his stirrup, he turned his deep-set black eyes
upon her.
“Señor general,” she began, quaveringly.
He saw eyes as dark as his own, a pale face scarce younger. And his
short upper lip, under its wiry moustache, lifted a little, in what was
meant to be a smile.
“At your order, señorita,” he replied.
And now he saw the girl’s eyes widen and flash, saw the red of anger
run into lip and cheek.
“Señor general,” she continued huskily, “there is a man--one Ricardo
Villegas--who last night left the _hacienda_ San Jacinto to come to
Tacarigua and join _La Revolución_. Leaving, he took with him our
_cubierta_, a new _machete_, and--a woman.”
The general laughed.
“That man of yours was equipped for fighting,” he said.
She was clasping and unclasping her hands with nervous intensity.
“He had best be so,” she answered, “when next he meets me.”
“You will not meet him here.”
“No? no?”--quickly. Suspicion darkened her face. She drew back. The
general was lying, doubtless, to save a much-needed soldier from his
deserts.
“No,” went on Alcantara, lighting his cigarette, “you will not find him
here. I have one hundred men, but each has been with me since before
the beginning of the wet season. No one has joined me of late.”
She turned about, half murmuring to herself, and made as if to go.
“He went the other way, perhaps,” suggested the general; “to Rio Chico,
where is another force of _Los Salvadores_.”
She came round upon him, arms raised, set teeth showing between lips
that were pale again.
“I go to Rio Chico,” she said.
“And he will be gone--wait, wait! General Pablo Montilla leaves Rio
Chico to-night with his column.”
“I shall follow.”
“I join him with my men at dawn.”
He saw the light of a terrible hope illuminate her countenance. She
came to his stirrup again.
“Señor general,” she pleaded, “let me go with your soldiers. I am young
and strong--I can cook--I can carry a load----”
Alcantara puckered his lips teasingly, looking down at her. He marked
the plump, well rounded figure, the clear, copper-coloured skin with
its scarlet touches on mouth and cheek, the long braid, the full,
girlish throat.
“You go,” he said.
Child as she was, she knew the men of Venezuela, and she saw and
understood his look.
“I go for revenge, Señor general,” she declared meaningly. “If you are
so good as to allow me to follow you, I--I will be safe? Else I walk
far in the rear--alone.”
“As you like,” answered Alcantara. “There will be two other women
along--Maria, who goes with one of my _coroneles_, and La Negrita, the
woman of the black general, Pedro Tovar. You may march with them.”
“And when will you start?” she asked eagerly. “When?”
“We thirst for the blood of Ricardo Villegas,” laughed Alcantara.
“Well----”
A squad was approaching, led by a determined-looking officer. Two of
his men carried large-calibre German Mausers, the third had a Mauser
and a canvas money bag, and the fourth a Mauser and a rope.
“_Comisario_,” said the general, as the latter shuffled near and
saluted, “what _raciones_ have you collected?”
An expression of defeat spread upon the commissary’s countenance. He
shook his head dejectedly, and, reaching round, seized and brought
forward the money bag.
“These unreasonable, these unpatriotic people!” he began with heat.
“Actually they decline to give up their miserable savings. Observe!”
Alcantara peeked into the bag. “Oh, not so bad,” he said. “But perhaps
a better display of the rope----”
The other nodded. “I promise you they will be loyal.” Then, his face
more determined than before, the commissary departed. Behind came the
squad, the Mausers, the bag, and the noose.
The general addressed Manuelita. “We shall start at sunset,” he said.
“But you? You have walked all day, you say.”
“It does not matter. I will walk all night, gladly, _gladly_!”
He bent to arrange the knot of his sash. When he turned back again she
was gone.
At sunset the soldiers of Alcantara left the huts where they had been
quartered and gathered in the _Plaza_. Ragged and dirty they were,
and unshaven. Some of them were part Indian, with straight black hair
and copper-coloured skins. Others were negroes or half-castes, with
flat noses and kinky heads. But all were without uniforms. Their drill
trousers were of different colours, and held up by lengths of string
or rope. Their tight-fitting, collarless shirts, made of a cheap
woven material, were as vari-coloured. Even their little jackets,
that buttoned up to the neck and were brought in at the waist under
a cartridge belt, were not of the same shade or kind. Here and there
among them, stripped of its red trimmings, showed the khaki uniform
of the government--spoil of a battlefield. All wore _alpargatas_; and
those fortunate enough possessed straw hats of generous circumference
or brown, furry _pelo de guamas_, which displayed, on a narrow _divisa_
sewed around the crown, the corps and division of the fighter beneath.
Over the left shoulder of some of the men, and passed under the belt,
was a rolled, double-wool poncho, the blue side out, if it so happened,
but quite as often, in unconscious treason, the other, which was dyed
the red of the enemy.
Despite the commissary’s promise of loyalty, when the soldiers came
together there were no cheers from the townspeople, who, gathering to
see the departure, chattered in undertones among themselves, and eyed
the motley force in illy concealed dislike.
And now, obeying the call of a battered bugle, the start was made.
First down the street came General Blanco Alcantara, in fine style;
then the black general, Tovar, astride a lanky horse; after these,
a bevy of mounted officers--three _coroneles_, two _commandantes_,
and two _capitanes_; the privates--on foot and in no formation; the
_asistentes_, loaded down with the personal effects of their superiors;
and several burros and mules carrying pack saddles heavy with
ammunition; next, each with a bundle balanced on her head, a hat hung
to her arm, a gourd and a smoky pail swinging and clinking together at
her side, and a long _tabaco_ in her mouth, two women; last of all, a
padre, in cassock and shovel hat, riding a gaited mule.
The third woman to accompany the expedition was on the edge of the
town, where the road to Higuerote opens into the forest. She was
watching as she rested, eating an _arepa_ and the remaining plantain.
As Alcantara rode into sight, she stood up, her eyes shining, her lips
parted, her head erect. The command by, she walked forward sturdily
and fell in behind.
Night was falling then, but she was soon spied by those in the rear.
Presently, these had told others, and the soldiers stretched their
necks to look back to where she trudged. There was some whispering
among those nearest her, and presently the padre reined a little to
speak.
“You were not with us when we left the town,” he said. “How come you to
be here?”
“I wish to go to Higuerote,” she answered, but would explain no further.
Seeing her questioned, one of the _asistentes_, a kindly old man, fell
back to offer her a cigarette. She took it gratefully.
“And do you ignore the Church?” demanded the padre reprovingly.
The _asistente_ handed over a cigarette, and soon the three were
journeying forward together.
The night breeze swept over them as they went, making the way cool, and
bringing with it the fragrance of growing things. But their travelling
was difficult. The road was only a cart’s width, hard and stony, rising
and falling, too, on broken ground. There was no moon over the first
third of the journey, and every little while a jaguar, scenting their
passing, howled out at them from the dark, vine-hung forest lining the
march.
Bit by bit Manuelita told her companions the story of Ricardo’s flight.
As the padre listened, his round, florid face grew solemn, and he poked
out his under lip dubiously. The _asistente_, on the other hand, swore
often and pityingly, so that the good priest was kept busy crossing
himself.
“And have you come all the way from the _hacienda_ San Jacinto to-day?”
asked the soldier.
“Since morning,” Manuelita answered.
“In that case,” interposed the padre, settling himself in the saddle,
“to make your walking more easy, you may hold to the tail of my mule on
the up grades.”
Not long after, they were forced to cover their faces and cease
talking. For before the night was half gone, the moon topped the trees,
showing its great, burnished shield upon the starlit sky. And with the
rising of the moon the forest thinned, the way became more level, but
sandy, the walking extremely heavy, and legions of hungry mosquitoes
came swarming upon them. The padre’s mule, tormented by the pests, made
the middle of the track dangerous for Manuelita. She fell back, and
walked in silence beside the old orderly. Once she uncovered to ask him
how far they had got.
“Half-way,” he answered, when she murmured a thanksgiving.
Later she again spoke: “And how long before Higuerote is near?”
“Three hours,” he replied.
Her hands stole to her belt.
“Only one day and one night,” she said, “and yet I am almost upon them!”
But she was miserably tired by now, and many times would have stumbled
to her knees had not the _asistente_ supported her. He gave her
frequent draughts from his _aguardiente_ flask, and little lumps of
damp brown sugar out of a canvas bag at his thigh. The padre, riding
just in advance, looked back often to speak encouragement, and as often
called the _asistente_ forward to levy upon him for a cigarette.
Bravely Manuelita persevered. Toward morning her brain seemed to
wander, for she talked meaningless things to the old man lagging beside
her. But a moment’s rest, a swallow of drink, a whispered reminder, and
she struggled forward.
“_Santa María!_” was her petition, “only give me strength!”
The yellow moon had gone and the dawn was near when, having arrived
at three great sand hummocks thrown up close to the road, General
Alcantara drew rein. Noiselessly the soldiers laid down their ponchos,
partook of cold coffee and a little food, and stretched themselves for
a brief rest. The horses of the officers and the ammunition animals
were led to one side, where they might crop the grass growing about in
clumps. Alcantara and Pedro Tovar walked apart, conversing. The padre
guided his mule to one side and, out of his saddle, was soon drowsing
as comfortably as the mosquitoes would permit; while Manuelita sought
the women, who were smoking, and squatted on the sand beside them, her
face to the east, her lips moving with soundless words.
Swiftly the day came. A moment of little light, another that was
brighter, and the stars dimmed. Then the unkempt force got to their
feet and moved on--cartridge belts filled and _machetes_ slipped under
them. Above, floating on white-tipped wings, followed a score of the
bald black _samuro_, their curved beaks lowered in horrid watchfulness.