“In what direction?” demands Ashley.
“To Santos.”
“To Santos? Heavens, man, they cannot go to Santos at this hour of night unescorted!”
Unescorted? Is not Captain Huerta and his men all the escort that one could desire?
This intelligence is a frightful strain upon Ashley’s composure, as he thinks of Juanita, Isabel, Captain Huerta and the deserted La Quinta de Quesada.
“Quick! To Santos!” he cries, springing into a volante and tossing a handful of coin to the driver. “To Santos as fast as your horse will travel!”
The man leaps to his seat, cracks his whip and they are off.
As they clatter through the streets of Santiago and swing into the road which Ashley traversed only a few hours before, Jack shouts impatiently, “Faster! Faster! Great Scott! This is no funeral! Though it may be, before I’m through with it,” he adds, savagely.
“But senor, we will dash the volante to pieces,” protests his charioteer.
Inwardly chafing, but realizing the futility of impatience, Ashley forces himself to be calm. It seems an age before the distance to Santos is traversed, but finally the outlines of the few buildings which the hamlet boasts are seen against the starlit sky.