“Will you be allowed to go?”
“Yeas—General Garcia no stop me—he know me all right,” and the negro grinned and showed his teeth.
I was tempted to start at once, but decided to wait until morning, in the hope of finding Alano. In spite of the fact that I knew my chum would be doubly cautious, now we were separated, I felt decidedly anxious about him. The Spanish troops were on every side, and the soldiers would not hesitate to shoot him down should they learn who he was.
The night passed in comparative quietness. Toward morning we heard distant firing to the northwest, and at five o’clock a messenger dashed into camp with the order to move on to the next mountain, a distance of two miles. Through Jorge I learned that the Spaniards had been outwitted and driven back to the place from whence they had come.
There now seemed nothing for me to do but to push on to the convent on the river, in the hope of there joining my father. We were, so I was told, but a few miles from Guantanamo, but the route to the convent would not take us near the town.
Jorge’s brother felt much better, so the negro went off with a light heart, especially after I had made it plain to him that my father would reward him for any trouble he took on my account. I told him about Alano, and before leaving camp we walked around among the sentries in the hope of gaining some information concerning him. But it was all useless.
“Maybe he went on to Father Anuncio’s,” said my negro guide, and this gave me a grain of comfort.
The soldiers and Jorge and myself left the camp at about the same time, but we did not take the same road, and soon my guide and I found ourselves on a lonely mountain trail overlooking a valley thick with brush and trees. The sun shone brightly, but the air was clear and there was a fine breeze blowing, and this made it much cooler than it would otherwise have been.
I missed the horse, and wondered if Alano still had the animal he had captured. It might be possible he had ridden straight on to Guantanamo, and was now bound from there up the river. If that was so, we might meet on the river road.
“Werry bad road now,” said Jorge, as we came to a halt on the mountain side. “Be careful how you step, Señor Mark.”