The yellow moon had gone and the dawn was near when, having arrived at three great sand hummocks thrown up close to the road, General Alcantara drew rein. Noiselessly the soldiers laid down their ponchos, partook of cold coffee and a little food, and stretched themselves for a brief rest. The horses of the officers and the ammunition animals were led to one side, where they might crop the grass growing about in clumps. Alcantara and Pedro Tovar walked apart, conversing. The padre guided his mule to one side and, out of his saddle, was soon drowsing as comfortably as the mosquitoes would permit; while Manuelita sought the women, who were smoking, and squatted on the sand beside them, her face to the east, her lips moving with soundless words.
Swiftly the day came. A moment of little light, another that was brighter, and the stars dimmed. Then the unkempt force got to their feet and moved on—cartridge belts filled and machetes slipped under them. Above, floating on white-tipped wings, followed a score of the bald black samuro, their curved beaks lowered in horrid watchfulness.
When the sun rose, the company made a second halt, behind a line of scrub growth. From here General Alcantara, dismounting, went forward alone on hands and knees. He stopped while yet in the shelter of the dense underbrush and stood up. To his left lay a town—tile-roofed, low houses, three rows of them, two rows having their back yards to the sea. Beyond these was a gently shelving beach strewn with the unpainted, dugout canoes of fishermen. Still farther, dotted here and there with a dingy sail, was the blue of the Caribbean, its outermost edge moving up and down upon the paler blue of the sky. To his right, some two hundred yards away, was the curving line of a railroad, then beach and boats, then sea again. And in the very foreground, seated on the sand, under a sagging telegraph wire, was a man in khaki, fast asleep, with his gun, muzzle end down, in a land-crab hole.
Alcantara now lowered himself again to creep on, and a moment later the sentry awoke and found himself a prisoner.
Presently, from the south, there sounded a faint rumble. And soon, far down the rusty rails, appeared a train. Alcantara gave a signal to those who had come up from behind, and at once the Revolutionists in khaki gathered the officers’ mounts and, taking the captured sentry with them, went back along the road to the shelter of the sand hummocks. The padre turned his gaited mule and single-footed after them, concern written large on his round, florid face. The rest of the company displayed their agitation. The soldiers craned and gestured, or examined their arms. La Negrita and the other woman chattered under their breath. The two capitanes ran to and fro between Alcantara and the black general, taking and bringing messages. The men with the pack animals proceeded slowly toward the road gap in the shielding shrub. Only one of them all was giving the hour a solemn beginning. This was Manuelita, kneeling, bareheaded, in the sand, her hands clasped, her eyes closed, her face upturned.
“Santa María!” she whispered, for once more she was praying.
When the train was less than half a mile away Alcantara drew a small blue flag from his breast. It was of flimsy muslin, and showed at its centre a cross of yellow, blue, and red. The general, having unfolded it, held it in his right hand, so low that it could not be seen from the town. Instantly similar colours were waved from the engine cab. Again Alcantara signalled those behind, and the black general led them forward. At their front was borne a large flag of the cause, fastened to a bamboo pole.
When the train had crawled abreast of the Tacarigua force, its antique, ramshackle coaches came to a stop. Out of them tumbled some sixty soldiers, the heavy-set Pablo Montilla commanding. Alcantara saluted silently and made off with two-thirds of his own men straight along the track toward a railroad bridge in the town. As quietly, Tovar took the remaining third, joined Montilla, and started toward a second bridge, which crossed the Rio Curiepe at the main street. The train backed. The ammunition-mules and -burros were held close to the track, where stayed Maria and the other woman. But Manuelita, marking which way the men of Rio Chico had gone, ran after, and fell in behind them.
That advance was made in two lines, the soldiers trotting single file. Those on the track were heard from first. A shot rang out—then another. Then the battered bugle sounded a few clear notes, which the Mausers obeyed with a spatter of shots.
Now Tovar turned to his men with a cry: “Adelante, muchachos!”