Presently, pointing northward, she found two sets, the one plainly a man’s, the other smaller. They were new, too, for the ooze still stood in them. Instantly her attention fixed upon these. She floundered after them, rod upon rod, as certain that she was upon the right trail as if she could see Ricardo and the woman ahead of her. Here the footprints were close together—she ground her teeth. Here they were farther apart. And here someone had stumbled, for there was the mark of a naked palm on the soft earth. She laughed, and stroked the handle of the lanza.
When the tracks left the hacienda of San Jacinto they entered that of its northern neighbour—Guevara. Here they made a detour to avoid the cacao court and huts of the plantation’s workers. Then on again, through mud and mire, keeping always straight toward Tacarigua. Farther still, when this hacienda was crossed, they entered the rough path leading northward through the forest, and were lost.
At midday Manuelita stopped at a deep-shadowed spot on the road to eat a meal of baked plantain and arepa. The monkeys jabbered down at her. Now and then she heard strange movements close by in the jungle. But she felt no fear. A few moments for food, a pull at a water-filled gourd flask, a few crumbs to a lizard, blinking—head downward—from a tree trunk at her elbow, and she trotted on.
It was the hour before sunset when, through a tangle, she peered out from the forest’s edge. Before her was a shallow stream, muddy though it was flowing over a bed of pebbles. Beyond, a cluster of red, tiled roofs, was Tacarigua. Tacarigua! And they were there!
She opened her bundle for the comb; bathed quickly face, arms, and from foot to knee, and carefully rubbed away the caked dirt marring the bright figures of her skirt. Then, with the sun looking back from the ragged range of La Silla de Caracas, and a breeze beginning to stir the leaves that fringed the water, she slipped on her alpargatas, took the path again, and entered the village.
General Blanco Alcantara, in command of the Revolutionary force at Tacarigua, sat upon his horse before the green-walled Jefatura Civil. He looked quite imposing. A broad hat, wound in the blue of his cause, was set rakishly upon his black hair. A wide sash of webbed stuff in the same blue ran over his right shoulder and was wrinkled into the loop of his sabre scabbard, from which, knotted, it fell, ends free, to a silver spur.
Near him, lounging upon the steps of the building, were several officers, smoking, talking, and evidently waiting. To one side, also occupied with their tabacos and gossip, were as many asistentes, waiting, too, and looking as important as the discarded apparel of their superiors would permit.
When Manuelita approached the general, he was looking down his straight nose at the cigarette he was rolling in his fingers. But at the sound of her voice close to his stirrup, he turned his deep-set black eyes upon her.
“Señor general,” she began, quaveringly.