“On its first voyage, it carried my sister as one of the passengers, she not knowing I had left Zalapata, and she is there awaiting my coming.”
Captain Guzman, sitting at the elbow of the American, gazed off toward the wooded plain as if in reverie. His words did not seem to be addressed to any one, but were as if he communed with himself:
“Five hours after the gunboat went up the river, it passed where we were resting on its way back to Atlamalco. The distance from where we were to Zalapata is eighty miles and to make the trip the boat would need eight or ten hours.”
“What the mischief are you driving at? General Yozarro told me he took the lady thither.”
Captain Guzman withdrew his gaze from the shore, and looking calmly in the face of Major Starland, said:
“General Yozarro lied.”
“How can you know that?”
“Do you not see that the gunboat could not do what he said it did? But Martella here was on the boat and knows all.”
“Call him, that I may question him.”
“No need of that; I have questioned him; I know that your real business with General Yozarro was to meet the Señorita, your sister, and I know all that Martella knows.”