“Not come back! Eh bien, I will not go a step.”
At first Don Anastasio’s pinched face lighted with relief. But at once a conflicting anxiety, lest she might not go, seemed to possess him. “But señorita,” he protested, “what will Your Mercy do? The ship, yes, señorita, the ship has sailed already. It left last night for Vera Cruz.”
“And here am I,” Jacqueline exclaimed, tapping her foot, “with only one dress!”
A long bubbling whistle sounded near a gendarme’s lantern in the middle of the street. A block away another sounded, then another, and another, and others yet, each thinly shrill and distant. It was the challenge to slumber and the answer of wakefulness from the watches of the night over the silent city.
59“Another quarter gone by!” Murguía exclaimed nervously. “Come, señoritas, if we are to reach the Valles stage by nightfall, we have no time to lose. There are your horses, I will––”
A tremor cut short his words. Someone had just emerged from the mesón.
“Gracious, Murgie, off so early?” the newcomer observed cheerily.
Murguía scowled. He knew that tone.
“If I’m late, I apologize,” the other drawled gently, from behind the flare of a match over his pipe. “Howsoever, all my eyes weren’t shut, and you wouldn’t of left me. Pretty quiet about striking camp, though! Didn’t want to disturb me, maybe? Well, well, who made you so thoughtful? Not Captain Morel? Now I wonder!”
“I uh, why should I wake you, Mis-ter Driscoll? Have I asked you even to go?”