“There is a car coming,” he said.
She followed, frightened, across the roof.
She saw the hills and lower slopes inland swimming in gold light like lacquer. The black huts of the peons, the lurid leaves of bananas showed up uncannily, the trees green-gold stood up, with boughs of shadow. And away up the road was a puther of dust, then the flash of glass as the automobile turned.
“Stay here,” said Ramón, “while I go down.”
“Why didn’t your peons come and help you?” she said.
“They never do!” he replied. “Unless they are armed on purpose.”
He went, picking up his blouse and putting it on. And immediately the blood came through.
He went down. She listened to his steps. Below, the courtyard was all shadow, and empty, save for two dead white-clothed bodies of men, one near the zaguan, one against a pillar of the shed.
The motor-car came sounding its horn wildly all the way between the trees. It lurched into the zaguan. It was full of soldiers, soldiers standing on the running-boards, hanging on.
“Don Ramón! Don Ramón!” shouted the officer, leaping out of the car. “Don Ramón!” He was thundering at the doors of the inner zaguan.