“But he must have been here, señorita,” replies Juarez. “He was seen to come in this direction.”
A thought strikes the girl. She must gain time. So with an admirably-feigned glance of uneasiness at a side door leading into another room, she reiterates that she has not seen him.
“Ah, well, comrades, I have some old wine in here,” says her father, advancing towards this door. “We will try it.” He turns the handle; but the door is locked. “The key, Anita, the key!”
“The key? Oh, here it is,” and after a pretended search she finds the key. They throw open the door suddenly, and stand staring in stupid surprise into an empty room.
“Juarez,” said the girl, calling him apart from the rest—“keep quiet now. Do you want the Englishman? You shall take him.”
The other started, and his eyes lit up with savage triumph.
“How? Where? Where is he?”
“You shall have him. Listen, Juarez. He has been here, but if you try to find him now you will fail. I promised to meet him two hours after midnight at the corner of the cane planting. He thinks I love him, but I hate him,” she went on, working herself into a state of admirably-feigned fury. “He laughed at me and treated me as a plaything—now I shall have revenge. But listen. Go back to the camp. He is suspicious of you already; but he will come to me two hours after midnight. Then be in waiting, and you shall take him as easily as a leopard in a net. Don’t tell the others about it until the time comes, only get them away now.”
If Juarez felt a qualm of suspicion, she acted her part so well, that he fell headlong into the trap. With difficulty, he persuaded his fellow ruffians to abandon their quest for the present. He trusted Anita implicitly; and, full of elation at the speedy vengeance which would overtake his rival, he returned with the others to their carousals.
The hours drag their length, and silence reigns in the tropical forest. A damp, unwholesome mist rises from the river and spreads over the tree-tops. Now and again the shout of the revellers breaks upon the silence, or the deep bass of a bloodhound is raised in dismal bay at the moon. Still Anita sits there, gazing out upon the forest, and following in spirit every step of him whose life she has saved, further and further as each step takes him from her. At last she falls fast asleep, worn out with the excitement and tension of the past few hours. Then comes a loud, angry knocking at the door.