“Now where?” questioned my Cuban chum, as we hesitated in the broad and cool hallway. “Here is a sitting room,” and he opened the door to it.
A voice broke upon our ear. A negro woman was singing from the direction of the kitchen, as she rattled among her earthenware pots. Evidently she was alone.
“If they left her on guard, we have little to fear,” I said, and we entered the sitting room. Both of us uttered a faint cry of joy, for there on the table rested our valises and provisions, just as they had been taken from us. Inside of Alano’s bag were the two pistols with the cartridges.
“Now we can go at once,” I said. “How fortunate we have been! Let us not waste time here.”
“They owe us a meal for detaining us,” replied my chum grimly. “Let me explore the pantry in the next room.”
He went through the whip-end curtains without a sound, and was gone several minutes. When he came back his face wore a broad smile and he carried a large napkin bursting open with eatables of various kinds, a piece of cold roast pork, some rice cakes, buns, and the remains of a chicken pie.
“We’ll have a supper fit for a king!” he cried. “Come on! I hear that woman coming.”
And coming she was, in her bare feet, along the polished floor. We had just time left to seize our valises and make our escape when she entered.
“Qué quiere V.? [What do you want?]” she shouted, and then called upon us to stop; but, instead, we ran from the dooryard as fast as we could, and did not halt until the plantation was left a good half mile behind.
“We are well out of that!” I gasped, throwing myself down under the welcome shade of a cacao tree. “Do you suppose she will send the soldiers in pursuit?”