“For a salute to Panama and our friends,” explained the other. “You do not know the custom of the road to Bogota in times of revolution—that is, at all times. And you have no pistol,” he added with a sigh. “But this will do for both of us.”
Reining in his horse at a shaded bend in the trail, General Herran, unconsciously following the Fat Knight’s memorable exploit on Shrewsbury Battlefield, took from his hip pocket a huge case bottle and handed it to David.
“Fire the first shot, my friend, and I will come after with a long one for your Guatavita mine.”
In the act of carrying out this pleasant suggestion, the attention of David and Herran was suddenly caught by a babel of voices—shouts of command, the tramp of many feet—coming from the Bogota end of the trail. Interruptions of this kind are more serious than they may seem to those unfamiliar with Colombian mountain travel. So rough and narrow is the road to Bogota, with sometimes a precipice on one hand and a sheer wall of rock on the other, that the problem of two parties passing each other is not always an easy one. Although this is the chief thoroughfare between the national capital and the Magdalena, it remains quite as primitive and unadapted to modern needs as in the days of the Indians. To widen and pave it proved more of a task in road-building than the Spanish conquerors cared to undertake; and their successors in the government of the country have, until now, attempted little in the way of improvement. Thus, travelers from the lowlands over this Indian trail frequently have to fight for a passage through a descending rabble of men and burros, or else allow themselves to be crowded off into a tangle of underbrush on one side or thrown down a steep cliff on the other.
As it happened, the spot chosen by General Herran and David for their friendly salute was a particularly awkward one in an encounter with a lot of travelers coming from the opposite direction. In front of them the trail rose abruptly in a long zigzag of rocks and gullies, down which the caravan from Bogota, the noise of whose approach grew rapidly more distinct, was bound to descend upon them. Their only chance to escape was either through a morass, covered with a dense forest growth, or else up a hazardous mountain side, strewn with boulders and loose stones. Of course, they might retrace their steps until they found a more open space; but this seemed too much like retreating from an enemy and did not recommend itself to either of the horsemen.
“It sounds like a regiment of soldiers,” said David, taking another long draught from the Falstaffian “pistol” and returning it to Herran.
“Perhaps,” replied the General, indifferent to outside matters until he had finished his part of the prescribed ceremony. “And here we are,” he added, with a sigh of contentment, “saluting Panama and an American company, with an army of volunteers, bent on licking the Yankees, coming down upon us.”
“Are you sure?”
“Caramba! In Honda they said these volunteers started from Bogota three days ago. They are due here now.”